A/N: Phew. This chapter is longer than the rest... I don't know why. Maybe it's the start of an ongoing trend. Many thanks to April for letting me borrow Daniel! And many apologies for taking so long... I'll try to be more prompt in the future...
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Sebastian was somewhat more creative.
"What in the name of the gods above, below, and the realms between were you thinking?" he roared as the three witches staggered in, supported or flanked by Dennis. "You were supposed to banish her quickly, before she could touch you."
"Things got a little out of hand..." Merry said, calmly ignoring her father's frantic outbursts as she helped carry her friend in to the dining room. "Get the plastic sheeting, we don't want her bleeding all over the place and then have less unflappable people walking in here and seeing huge blood stains."
"I'm all right," Laurel said wryly from between Amber and Merry. "Thanks for asking."
"You damn well should be. If you'd managed to get yourself killed I would kill you myself..." Sebastian growled, and as hilarious as it sounded Dennis had the feeling it wasn't entirely an idle threat. "What exactly went wrong?"
"Before or after we drove threw her?" Amber sighed. "She wasn't where she was supposed to be, and then Laurel panicked, and ... shit, Seb, we'd've been a lot better off if you hadn't told us she was Laurel's great-great-great-great-great-great grand-whatever."
Sebastian heaved a sigh that was more growl than sigh, but didn't say anything. He went off to get the plastic sheeting and spread it over the couch without a word. Laurel groaned as she was laid down on it, but for the most part the room was so silent that Dennis was growing more and more uneasy. It felt like a funeral home, like Laurel was already dead. He didn't like that feeling.
"Damn, girl... you've got cloth all through the wounds..." Amber muttered. It sounded loud in the silence.
"Not my fault," Laurel made a face at the other two women, and they all smiled. Then her eyes closed and her body seemed to relax. It looked as though she'd stopped breathing.
"What happened?" Dennis asked nervously. No one answered. "Merry?"
"She's asleep..." Merry took a deep breath and finally stepped back from the couch. "Actually, she's tranced. It makes it easier for us to heal her." Laurel had disappeared into the other room while Merry was talking, and now returned with a pair of quartz crystals larger than Dennis had ever seen, spear point crystals as big as Merry's tiny wrist.
"While you're doing that, I don't suppose I can fill you in on what's been happening elsewhere?" Dennis looked around at Sebastian, who was standing in the doorway leaning on his cane and looking intimidating. He didn't sound sarcastic, though, he sounded tired. Dennis looked from Merry to her father, feeling out of his depth despite the time he had spent around the family.
"Go right ahead..." Merry's voice held no rancor, no rebuke. Was this what it was like in so-called magical families?
"We're going to have to split up, take them on singly, or in pairs at most. The spectral activity's escalated in the last few days, and we can't allow any more deaths. By the time we banish the next one, most of the ghosts will have already at least tasted their first kill, much less ..." he trailed off, shrugging one shoulder slightly. If Dennis hadn't known better he would have said the man looked defeated.
"Can we get Erik in on it now?" Amber groused. Dennis looked back at her; she and Merry were running the crystals over Laurel's wounds, almost like some sort of Star Trek device. They weren't noticeably closing, though.
"I don't know. I've put in a message for him and, surprisingly enough, John stopped by while you four were gone."
Merry nodded approvingly. "John's more likely than any of us to be able to find Erik, at this point anyway."
"Well, yes. But we shouldn't count on his help. And we can't in good conscience ask anyone else in on this fiasco..."
"So it's up to us..." Dennis interjected.
All three of them stared at him. Up until recently he had been reluctant to put himself forward in anything magical, reluctant to do anything that might induce the raging migraines that had become a way of life for him before the three witches and their sorcerer father. He shifted uncomfortably; he was still reluctant to do anything that might cause more headaches, or kill him like he'd seen in the vision in the sorcerer's house.
But there he was, standing there staring at the gaping, bloody gashes in Laurel's body. Her chest didn't rise or fall, she didn't look alive. And he could so easily imagine the same wounds in Amber's body... or worse, Merry's. The thought made his chest and throat tighten. He swallowed anyway, and took a couple of deep breaths. They were still staring at him.
"What?"
Merry reached out with her free hand, moving the crystal lightly over Laurel's body again. "Dennis, are you sure you want to do this? Solo, I mean?"
His next breath rattled in his chest. "No..." Sebastian was staring at him as though his next answer would matter more than anything he'd said in the older man's presence. "No, I'm not sure I want to do this Solo... actually, I'm sure I don't want to do this. I don't even know if I want anything to do with anything magic ever again."
Merry looked down.
"But... on the other hand, I can't really go through the rest of my life with these splitting headaches. I can't spend the rest of my life hiding from what I am. I have to learn how to deal with this sometime, and you guys aren't always going to be there for me." He laughed. It was bitter, more so than anything they had heard out of him before, and it showed in their faces. "I learned that lesson a long, long time ago."
Merry squeezed his hand tightly.
Sebastian coughed, a small, attention-getting noise. "Well. We have a number of ghosts left to tackle. Who would be best suited to which?"
Silence.
"Well, don't everybody jump up at once," Dennis tried to lighten the tension with some humor, interrupted by the banging on the door. Everyone jumped, and Laurel's eyes flew open.
"What the hell was that?" Amber whispered.
"The door..." Sebastian said. His voice was ironic and amused but no less tense. "I'll get it."
"Father..." Merry started to sit up, but her father's outstretched hand forestalled her.
"Stay with Laurel."
She exchanged a hesitant, nervous look with Dennis.
"Laurel!"
Pounding, smaller feet preceded Sebastian into the living room. Anna and Jenna circled around their sister, then around Amber, Merry, and Dennis. They didn't stop moving until they'd skidded and nearly slammed into each other, ending up directly in front of Sebastian again. The three witches and Sebastian, used to this behavior, sighed. Dennis just stared.
"We heard that you..."
"... needed help, so we figured..."
"... we could join in and..."
"... help out?"
Laurel chuckled, sliding off the couch and kneeling down and stretching her arms out for a hug. They promptly dived into her arms, flickering back to ordinary young twins from the eerie girls Dennis saw occasionally. Although he was slowly getting control over what Merry called his 'Gift', he was still debating whether or not it was more like a curse. These girls made it seem more on the detrimental side of things. "Sure..." Laurel said, either oblivious to or disregarding the fact that she was talking to two girls who hadn't even made it to high school yet.
"All right," Sebastian said calmly, and Dennis looked over at him. The older man shook his head slightly: left, right, back to center. Translation: Not now, explanations later. Dennis could live with that. "With your help it'll make things a bit easier..."
"You're all..."
"... bloody."
Dennis tried to shut the twins out and listen only to Sebastian. It was difficult, as he felt little twinges of guilt each time the twins poked and prodded Laurel's wounds.
"We have nine ghosts left to deal with... eight, really, considering Kriticos isn't likely to be much of a problem. If we each take one, that leaves three left to deal with by the time we're done. Dennis..." he turned to the younger man, who swallowed through a suddenly dry throat. "Do you think you can take on the Angry Princess by yourself? Of all of them she's the least likely to be any trouble to you."
Dennis nodded slowly, thinking fast. Of what he remembered of the Angry Princess, she was... had been... a depressed young woman in her late teens who had slashed herself out of a twisted need to be beautiful and then committed suicide. He would be able to deal with that, better than crazed ancestresses or dead convicts. He hoped. And he nodded.
"Good. Laurel, I'm going to give you the First Born Son... if anyone can talk some sense into the kid, you can. Besides, he's not likely to be much of a threat..." his gray eyes flickered, and for a second Dennis caught a glimpse of the pain and stark fear Laurel's bloody entrance had caused. "And you can't handle much of a threat in this condition, not now. Merry, you're going to get the Bound Woman, Amber, you tackle the Torn Prince. Anna, Jenna, do you think you two can handle the Torso?"
The two girls nodded solemnly, and it struck Dennis yet again how well Sebastian managed them all. He had, by process of elimination, given the youngest members of their mishmash family the least threatening ghost of all, although perhaps not necessarily the least frightening.
"I will attempt the Great Child and the Dire Mother..."
Merry caught her breath.
"... and we should all leave as soon as possible."
"Tomorrow morning," Laurel said, exchanging a glance with Dennis that conveyed volumes. The twins had gone on to chatter at Amber, and Merry was distracted with her father. He suspected that none of them heard her voice in his head. Merry's worried, and she might be right, but I think Sebastian can handle himself. Dennis nodded, not trusting himself to telepathy right now. "Tomorrow morning," she repeated, "Right now I think we all need some sleep. I'll get the twins home..."
Sebastian nodded, passing a hand over his eyes, suddenly looking very tired and every day of his hundred plus years. "All right. All right, look... go to bed. All of you. We have enough work to do tomorrow. And don't look at the clock," he caught Dennis in the middle of turning his head. "You'll just get even more tired."
He disappeared into his rooms.
Laurel stood, shakily, but somehow she looked much better than she had even a few minutes ago. He stared suspiciously at the twins, who looked more tired than they should have. For that matter, what kind of... his brain stopped in the middle of asking himself why two thirteen year old girls were over at their cousin's house at... some ugly hour of the night. Magical families. He shook his head.
"I'll get them back home," Laurel murmured, even as Amber staggered into Merry's room. "You three ... well, two. Get some sleep."
Merry chuckled, yawning. Through the open door Amber's feet could be seen dangling off the upper bunk. "Not a bad idea. You going to be okay to drive?"
"We'll make sure..."
"... she gets home safe."
Dennis shook his head and tottered into Merry's room. Then he stopped in mid stride as he realized what Amber had so neatly done. He could swear she wasn't snoring, but snickering in her sleep.
"Goddess, tomorrow's going to be exhausting..." Merry yawned, flopping onto the futon bunk and kicking her shoes towards the back of the room. She closed her eyes, her breathing starting to even out into sleep. Dennis watched, caught. "You really should get some sleep, you know."
He blinked. He had no idea how long he'd been staring. She had opened her eyes at some point... had he fallen asleep while standing there? "Right..."
Pause. He made no move towards the bed, which made her smile and roll over onto her side after the first minute or so. "You can crash on the bed, you know. I won't bite. And you probably wouldn't make it up the stairs anyway."
"Sure I..." he turned around, and somehow found himself facing the inside of the room again and leaning on the door. Sleep really did make one dizzy. "Oh."
"Come on, Dennis. I won't bite, and you need the sleep. We all need the sleep. If we're going to get anything done tomorrow." Her words were punctuated by yawns, and she was clearly falling asleep even as she tried to talk to him.
It was that more than anything else that drew him to sit by her on the bed, lean up against the wall and watch her curl up against the pillows. She was asleep within minutes, her breath softly blowing the few strands of hair that fell over her face, head tucked on her hands. He brushed her hair back from her face, watching the movements as though they belonged to someone else. Her hair was almost silken, and smelled of berries and lavender. It seemed to curl around his fingers and tug him down into sleep, a restful sleep that was blessedly free of dreams.
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The first sensation he registered when he woke up was warmth... all around him, and not just the warmth of being tucked up under too many covers. The second thing he noticed was softness, smooth skin, and the scent of raspberries and lavender. He pried his eyes open, squinting against the sunlight that crept unbidden into the room and seemed determined to blind them all.
Merry was curled up against him, head pillowed on his chest, arms around his waist, snuggled up somehow in her sleep. He wasn't sure which was more astonishing, that she had relaxed into his arms (into his arms? oh boy...) in the middle of the night or that he hadn't gone into migraine-inducing visions when she had. Even now he couldn't feel them threatening, and while physical contact with the Kane clan, living in the same house with them was probably as relaxing as a normal life for him was going to get, he had never felt this sense of peace before. It was blissfully relaxing...
And very distracting. He forced himself to get up, carefully swinging his legs over the side of the bed and ducking under the top bunk, letting Merry down gently so she didn't wake up. It was a futile effort, as it turned out.
"Time to get going?" she yawned. He nodded, wondering if he should say anything. "I'll drop you off at the school... There'll be someone there to meet you, Sebastian's arranged it." She frowned. "I don't think he actually slept."
Dennis hugged her suddenly, wanting to erase that worried frown, that look of fear in her eyes. "He'll be okay. He's been at this how long?"
She smiled a little. "Longer that all four of us put together, that's for sure. I know... it's just... I don't know. I wish he'd take better care of himself sometimes."
He didn't know what to say to that. He felt a sudden urge to kiss her forehead, stroke her hair, something. "He'll be okay. We all will." It was more confidence than he felt, but ...
"Are you going to be okay with this? Flying solo?" She looked up at him, and Dennis winced, almost wishing she hadn't asked. He still wasn't sure what had possessed him to volunteer, but... Laurel's bloody gashes flashed in his mind's eye again, along with desperate visions of the future? The past? He didn't know. Bloody women in Victorian dresses, bloody bodies of Merry and the twins. He staggered backwards a step, clutching his forehead. "Dennis?"
Her hands overlaid his, and the world went away. At least the bad parts of it did. Suddenly everything was muted. "I'm okay..." he took a deep breath, fighting down nausea. "I'm okay. I'm okay."
"Are you sure?"
No. I just had a splitting headache. I just had a vision of you dead, the twins dead, everyone dead. Everyone, everything I touch is dead, or ends up that way. "Yeah."
She touched his cheek, and he looked down to see her smiling shyly. It caught his heart, and the world fogged around the edges again. "Okay," she murmured, blushing for no apparent reason. As though in return he blushed, too.
"Are you ready for this?" He didn't want her to go. He didn't want any of them to go. But they were so much better than he was. They could handle themselves. He hoped.
"As ready as we're going to be. It'll be fine, Dennis. Trust me?" she smiled, and he had to smile back.
"I trust you."
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It's those damn ghosts I don't trust.
Dennis sighed, staring at the empty school yard and fighting back a thousand unhappy memories of his own childhood. Afternoons spent hiding from ordinary childhood bullies on the playground, not because he was particularly geeky or bookish (although he had been) but because he didn't want them to touch him, didn't want their violence in his head. Afternoons spent dodging the physical blows and the psychic assault. Teachers who didn't understand why he didn't want their would-be comfort, their hugs and their touches. Counselors who didn't understand why he knew what he knew, or understood what he did. Adults who had stared, cringed, or yelled at him when he blurted out what he knew, before he learned to sit still and keep his damn mouth shut. Kids who instinctively sensed someone in their midst who would always be an outsider and kept away.
He had really hated school. From elementary up through high school it had all been one never-ending cycle of ostracism, violence, counselors, parental yelling, and eventually silence and then more ostracism. Summer holidays had been the only brief respite, especially when he had found that one blissful job working in the library reshelving books. Books were good. Books didn't have memories, and the spirits that attached themselves to libraries didn't usually have any issues they wanted to share.
Dennis stood there for another few minutes, trying to work up the courage to go in. It wasn't, he was starting to realize, all the ghost, or even mostly the ghost that was making him nervous. It was the memories of all those hellish days spent in an institution where no one understood him or even cared enough to make the effort. Eighteen years of memories, just about. He held back a shudder.
And then he nearly screamed as a figure passed by a window. Nearly, because he also nearly bit his tongue off when he jumped. The figure paused at the edge, then moved back into the light where he could see it was (probably) the teacher Sebastian had arranged to be there to let him in. Thank god for small favors, at least the teacher didn't look dead. He walked up to the door, which the teacher was pushing open.
"Hey... you must be Dennis."
The man was ordinary looking enough at least, and only a little older than Dennis, or at least he looked it. He put his hand out to shake and Dennis tried very hard not to stare at him as though he were a poisonous snake.
"I don't do handshakes..." he said finally. "It's a... ghost ... kind of... thing."
Pause. "If you're a ghost, why do I have to open up the school for you?" It wasn't accusatory, just curious. Dennis wondered what kind of teacher took the presence of ghosts in stride.
"Oh, no, I'm not a ghost. I just see them. Too much." He hesitated, not sure how to say it. Merry, Sebastian, Amber... they had all recommended just to come out and say it to people who would believe him, other people who also had to deal with magic and ghosts and the supernatural in their lives. Was the teacher one of them? "I get this... psychometric... thing. When I touch people."
"Oh." The teacher looked torn between believing Dennis and believing a lifetime of indoctrination that ghosts and goblins and things that went bump in the night, didn't. He shrugged and gestured Dennis in. "Okay." Pause. "That can't be fun."
"It's no picnic..." Dennis relaxed a little. "I'm Dennis Rafkin."
"Daniel. Daniel Jameson." He smiled a little, gestured Dennis down the hall. "And the ghost is this way."
Dennis froze. "You know about the ghost?"
"Yeah... I'm the one that... called it in, I guess." He shrugged, and for a second Dennis wondered whether the teacher was really older than him as the man hunched over looking like a child waiting to be beaten. "I wasn't sure what it was at first, but the girls started to ... get strange, I guess. Stranger than usual, more depressed than usual."
Dennis thought back to what he knew of the Angry Princess. "Not surprising. The ghost's a teenaged girl who committed suicide, so she's probably affecting anyone who comes near her." They neared the bathroom, and Daniel pushed the door open.
"Teenage girl?" Daniel asked curiously.
Dennis nodded, looking around absently. It didn't look like she was here, which was a bit of a relief. On the other hand, it meant he had to get her here as well as banish her, which... well, he wasn't sure how to go about doing that. There were bloodstains on the wall, residue from her presence, but she was probably off roaming the halls of the school.
"Here..." Dennis slung his backpack off his shoulder, pulled out the couple pairs of glasses he'd snatched from the wreckage of Cyrus' house. He winced a little as he did so... no one in the household knew he had them, not even the witches. At least he thought they didn't. But sometimes he felt like he needed the crutch, and even if he didn't, Daniel couldn't see the ghost. He didn't really know why it was important that he show the ghost to the teacher. "Put these on."
Daniel did, then gave a high pitched sort of squeak as he looked around and seemed to skid on a pool of blood. "What is that?" he yelped.
Dennis blinked a little at the absurdity of it all, finding himself more calm than the person he was helping. "Blood. She cuts herself..."
Daniel stared at him. "Poor girl..."
Dennis blinked. There was a moment of brief empathy, a shared sensation of being outside everyone else, watching everyone else, and being unable to do anything about anything, being so far out of control and out of their depth.
As if to add to the sudden camaraderie they both jumped, shrieking, as the ghost walked through the wall with her knife. Dennis nearly skidded... on the floor, on a pool of blood, he couldn't have said which. Instinctively, he clutched and whatever was handy to keep him upright, which happened to be Daniel's shoulder. Memories flashed through his brain, strict parents telling him that everything he saw and felt was a lie, solace at the piano, curling up and trying to hide in the smallest patch of light from a house that was otherwise entirely dark, going out of his way to avoid shadows. Fear overwhelmed him, and he fought it back. Someone else's fear, he reminded himself. Keep it out.
The girl watched them, abstracted and interested in a distant sort of way.
"I hate it when that happens," Dennis muttered. Daniel, who was leaning up against a bathroom door and hyperventilating, could only nod.
"Do you always do that when you touch someone?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the ghost.
"Almost," Dennis murmured, also staring. The girl ghost seemed to fidget, uncomfortable with the scrutiny.
"Hey," Daniel said suddenly, making Dennis jump a little. "I'm Daniel, this is Dennis. Welcome to high school. Again." He smiled a little. Dennis thought briefly of Merry, of the same disarming, quiet shyness.
The girl ghost just stared at them, albeit with less hostility than she'd shown in the glass house.
"I guess you've already been around high schools before... so you already probably have seen everything there is to see. They're not much different..." Daniel laughed, high and nervous. He looked more scared than Dennis, which was a minor miracle. Dennis felt like he'd swallowed live goldfish.
"How are you doing?" he finally managed to ask. The girl looked at him with definite recognition and what he suspected was outright hatred. Not that he could blame her. In a way... in the only way that mattered, Kalina (that bitch) had been right. It had been his fault. "Better?"
"It's not much of a school," Daniel shrugged, "But it's what we've got. Pretty much like every other school you might have been to. Um..." He fidgeted. "So, are you doing okay?"
"I'm sorry about what happened..." Dennis murmured, trying to shut out everything but the task at hand. "I never meant... I didn't..." He sighed. He'd known exactly what he was doing. "I was desperate. And Cyrus was the only person who would actually talk to me like I was a person... at least, he acted like it." He laughed, bitter and abrasive. Daniel stared at him as though he was the ghost then, oddly, turned back to the Angry Princess.
"Everyone needs somewhere to belong, someone to talk to. Human beings are social creatures, but we're also very vicious. Those of us who get left on the outside... get hurt. And it's almost worse when we hurt each other."
Dennis winced. "Yeah."
The ghost girl screamed. She looked angry.
"There's no excuse for what I did to you. I know that... now. I've had... new teachers, I guess. Friends ... friends who know what it's like on the outside. Daniel's right, we shouldn't turn on each other ... like we do. I guess..." he paused.
Daniel and the girl stared at him.
"I guess it seems like there's not enough people... not enough affection to go around, it starts turning into a feeding frenzy. And the second any of us gets out it's like chum in the waters."
The girl mouthed the word 'chum' and actually started to giggle soundlessly. It was creepy.
"I don't have any answers... I always used to want answers, until I found out how hard they were to get. There's no excuse, no reason for what kids do to each other..."
"Even adults," Daniel said quietly. "You should see a parent social function. It's like an exquisitely staged fighting ring."
Dennis stared at the ground, not even looking at the girl anymore. "People keep saying how kids are so innocent. Kids aren't innocent. Not when they can rip each other to shreds like they do. It's just sick, and it's demented... and parents teach it to their kids, which is worse. So we all end up at each other's throats, and if you're not vicious enough to survive you get shoved to the bottom of the heap where you're curled up with your hands over your head to keep from getting hit..." he was babbling. He was laughing. Hysterical. "They keep saying it's a jungle out there, oh, they have no idea. It's a war out there, and ..."
Daniel stared at him, a little horror, a lot of sympathy. The peaceful calm of the morning seemed very far away. Even the ghost girl was looking at him with pity right now. Dennis straightened up, ran his fingers through his hair nervously, pushing it back from his forehead. "I don't know how to help you, kid," he admitted, sighing. "I wish I did. I just... I have no idea what I'm doing. These people I'm with now, they're trying to help me, but... I wish I knew if it was working. And I wish I knew... I don't know. That it was going to last. That they're not going to turn out to be a band of psychos like everyone else seems to be."
"They sent you out here by yourself. Sounds to me like they trust you, think you're capable of handling yourself pretty good. Sebastian said he had confidence in you." The ghost girl looked from Daniel to Dennis, thoughtful.
"I guess. I just wish I had some confidence in me. I still don't know how they manage to do it all... Laurel takes huge sucking chest wounds and keeps going, Merry somehow manages to handle both women and her father and the twins without stopping for breath, Amber... she can take on anything and keep fighting, she's not scared of anything. And Sebastian... he's ... I don't know. He's survived more than I ever want to go through, and ..."
The ghost girl was standing right in front of him, staring up at him with an expression he didn't know how to read.
"And you think you can't measure up? That you're not as good as they are?"
He nodded wordlessly. Didn't want to admit it. Didn't want to think about it.
"But you're here, aren't you? You're doing what has to be done. Lots of people don't."
"Yeah, so that makes me some kind of hero for doing what I'm supposed to do?" He knew he sounded petulant, and he didn't care. It galled even more because he was starting to realize that, here he was, supposed to banish a ghost, and he couldn't even do that.
"Sure. Especially with what you've been given. Like you said, kids don't tolerate other kids who are different, who don't conform to the very narrow standards. Most of those kids ... don't survive, in one way or another." Daniel winced at saying so near the ghost of someone who obviously 'hadn't survived.' "Grow up even more vicious than the people they grew up around, or suffering from clinical depression... or worse. Kids that grow up to be spree killers, drug addicts. It's a minor miracle anyone survives in one piece, much less finds any place they can really call home..."
Dennis shrugged, self-conscious. "Yeah, but that's just Merry... and Amber, and Laurel, and..."
"No, that's also you being willing to accept their help. A lot of people won't do that. You're trying to make up for what you've done, you're trying to pull your life back together. You're trying to fix your problems." There was a strange note in his voice, and he was wrapping his arms around his shoulders like he was cold. "In some ways that makes you stronger than any of them."
Dennis looked at Daniel, and then at the ghost girl. She was, strangely, smiling. Nodding. Most of her cuts, the deep gashes on her arms and chest and legs, were closing up, and her body was becoming a more natural color.
"I'm sorry... for what I did," Dennis sighed, staring at her, unconsciously mimicking Daniel's withdrawn and self-deprecating posture. "I wish I knew how to help you. I guess... I don't know. I just don't know what to do. From where I stand, it looks like your problems are over." It sounded bitter and hostile, even to him.
The ghost girl touched his cheek, smiling. Her fingers passed right on through his face, which was unnerving, but it was almost worth it for the feeling of apology and forgiveness that came with the spectral touch. She looked over at Daniel, thoughtfulness and sympathy, and smiled at him too. Her hands reached out to both of them as though she wanted to hug them, and she slowly disappeared.
Daniel stared at the spot where she'd been, startled and a little scared. "What was that?"
"I think," Dennis said slowly, "That was ghost-speak for keep up the good work."
They looked at each other, grinned a little, shook themselves. Suddenly the day seemed much less gloomy. Dennis could breath again, could think without the mind-numbing despair.
"You think she's gone for good."
He looked around. Even the bathroom looked brighter, and there was no trace of the blood that had stained the walls. "I think she's gone... I think she's finally come to terms with what happened to her... thanks." He tucked both pairs of glasses into his backpack. "And thanks for your help. Really... you've got a talent for this kind of thing." And where the hell were you when I was growing up, he wanted to ask, but he knew the answer to that one. Daniel Jameson would have been a classmate when Dennis was growing up, not a teacher.
Daniel flushed slightly and looked down. "I guess. There's some kids like her in some of my classes. I just wish it came as easily with them as it did today..."
They walked out of the school together, thinking. About what they could do, about the potential futility of their efforts. "Look, keep in touch, okay?" Dennis said finally as he flagged down a cab. "I know it's none of my business, but I think you could really use some of what they can do. I think..." There was no way to say it without sounding arrogant. "I really think you could use the help. With some of the... weirder stuff."
Daniel didn't look offended; quite to the contrary, he looked thoughtful. "I'll keep it in mind..." he nodded, stepping back as Dennis got into the cab. "Good luck."
"Thanks..." Dennis grinned wryly. "I think we're going to need it."
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Sebastian was somewhat more creative.
"What in the name of the gods above, below, and the realms between were you thinking?" he roared as the three witches staggered in, supported or flanked by Dennis. "You were supposed to banish her quickly, before she could touch you."
"Things got a little out of hand..." Merry said, calmly ignoring her father's frantic outbursts as she helped carry her friend in to the dining room. "Get the plastic sheeting, we don't want her bleeding all over the place and then have less unflappable people walking in here and seeing huge blood stains."
"I'm all right," Laurel said wryly from between Amber and Merry. "Thanks for asking."
"You damn well should be. If you'd managed to get yourself killed I would kill you myself..." Sebastian growled, and as hilarious as it sounded Dennis had the feeling it wasn't entirely an idle threat. "What exactly went wrong?"
"Before or after we drove threw her?" Amber sighed. "She wasn't where she was supposed to be, and then Laurel panicked, and ... shit, Seb, we'd've been a lot better off if you hadn't told us she was Laurel's great-great-great-great-great-great grand-whatever."
Sebastian heaved a sigh that was more growl than sigh, but didn't say anything. He went off to get the plastic sheeting and spread it over the couch without a word. Laurel groaned as she was laid down on it, but for the most part the room was so silent that Dennis was growing more and more uneasy. It felt like a funeral home, like Laurel was already dead. He didn't like that feeling.
"Damn, girl... you've got cloth all through the wounds..." Amber muttered. It sounded loud in the silence.
"Not my fault," Laurel made a face at the other two women, and they all smiled. Then her eyes closed and her body seemed to relax. It looked as though she'd stopped breathing.
"What happened?" Dennis asked nervously. No one answered. "Merry?"
"She's asleep..." Merry took a deep breath and finally stepped back from the couch. "Actually, she's tranced. It makes it easier for us to heal her." Laurel had disappeared into the other room while Merry was talking, and now returned with a pair of quartz crystals larger than Dennis had ever seen, spear point crystals as big as Merry's tiny wrist.
"While you're doing that, I don't suppose I can fill you in on what's been happening elsewhere?" Dennis looked around at Sebastian, who was standing in the doorway leaning on his cane and looking intimidating. He didn't sound sarcastic, though, he sounded tired. Dennis looked from Merry to her father, feeling out of his depth despite the time he had spent around the family.
"Go right ahead..." Merry's voice held no rancor, no rebuke. Was this what it was like in so-called magical families?
"We're going to have to split up, take them on singly, or in pairs at most. The spectral activity's escalated in the last few days, and we can't allow any more deaths. By the time we banish the next one, most of the ghosts will have already at least tasted their first kill, much less ..." he trailed off, shrugging one shoulder slightly. If Dennis hadn't known better he would have said the man looked defeated.
"Can we get Erik in on it now?" Amber groused. Dennis looked back at her; she and Merry were running the crystals over Laurel's wounds, almost like some sort of Star Trek device. They weren't noticeably closing, though.
"I don't know. I've put in a message for him and, surprisingly enough, John stopped by while you four were gone."
Merry nodded approvingly. "John's more likely than any of us to be able to find Erik, at this point anyway."
"Well, yes. But we shouldn't count on his help. And we can't in good conscience ask anyone else in on this fiasco..."
"So it's up to us..." Dennis interjected.
All three of them stared at him. Up until recently he had been reluctant to put himself forward in anything magical, reluctant to do anything that might induce the raging migraines that had become a way of life for him before the three witches and their sorcerer father. He shifted uncomfortably; he was still reluctant to do anything that might cause more headaches, or kill him like he'd seen in the vision in the sorcerer's house.
But there he was, standing there staring at the gaping, bloody gashes in Laurel's body. Her chest didn't rise or fall, she didn't look alive. And he could so easily imagine the same wounds in Amber's body... or worse, Merry's. The thought made his chest and throat tighten. He swallowed anyway, and took a couple of deep breaths. They were still staring at him.
"What?"
Merry reached out with her free hand, moving the crystal lightly over Laurel's body again. "Dennis, are you sure you want to do this? Solo, I mean?"
His next breath rattled in his chest. "No..." Sebastian was staring at him as though his next answer would matter more than anything he'd said in the older man's presence. "No, I'm not sure I want to do this Solo... actually, I'm sure I don't want to do this. I don't even know if I want anything to do with anything magic ever again."
Merry looked down.
"But... on the other hand, I can't really go through the rest of my life with these splitting headaches. I can't spend the rest of my life hiding from what I am. I have to learn how to deal with this sometime, and you guys aren't always going to be there for me." He laughed. It was bitter, more so than anything they had heard out of him before, and it showed in their faces. "I learned that lesson a long, long time ago."
Merry squeezed his hand tightly.
Sebastian coughed, a small, attention-getting noise. "Well. We have a number of ghosts left to tackle. Who would be best suited to which?"
Silence.
"Well, don't everybody jump up at once," Dennis tried to lighten the tension with some humor, interrupted by the banging on the door. Everyone jumped, and Laurel's eyes flew open.
"What the hell was that?" Amber whispered.
"The door..." Sebastian said. His voice was ironic and amused but no less tense. "I'll get it."
"Father..." Merry started to sit up, but her father's outstretched hand forestalled her.
"Stay with Laurel."
She exchanged a hesitant, nervous look with Dennis.
"Laurel!"
Pounding, smaller feet preceded Sebastian into the living room. Anna and Jenna circled around their sister, then around Amber, Merry, and Dennis. They didn't stop moving until they'd skidded and nearly slammed into each other, ending up directly in front of Sebastian again. The three witches and Sebastian, used to this behavior, sighed. Dennis just stared.
"We heard that you..."
"... needed help, so we figured..."
"... we could join in and..."
"... help out?"
Laurel chuckled, sliding off the couch and kneeling down and stretching her arms out for a hug. They promptly dived into her arms, flickering back to ordinary young twins from the eerie girls Dennis saw occasionally. Although he was slowly getting control over what Merry called his 'Gift', he was still debating whether or not it was more like a curse. These girls made it seem more on the detrimental side of things. "Sure..." Laurel said, either oblivious to or disregarding the fact that she was talking to two girls who hadn't even made it to high school yet.
"All right," Sebastian said calmly, and Dennis looked over at him. The older man shook his head slightly: left, right, back to center. Translation: Not now, explanations later. Dennis could live with that. "With your help it'll make things a bit easier..."
"You're all..."
"... bloody."
Dennis tried to shut the twins out and listen only to Sebastian. It was difficult, as he felt little twinges of guilt each time the twins poked and prodded Laurel's wounds.
"We have nine ghosts left to deal with... eight, really, considering Kriticos isn't likely to be much of a problem. If we each take one, that leaves three left to deal with by the time we're done. Dennis..." he turned to the younger man, who swallowed through a suddenly dry throat. "Do you think you can take on the Angry Princess by yourself? Of all of them she's the least likely to be any trouble to you."
Dennis nodded slowly, thinking fast. Of what he remembered of the Angry Princess, she was... had been... a depressed young woman in her late teens who had slashed herself out of a twisted need to be beautiful and then committed suicide. He would be able to deal with that, better than crazed ancestresses or dead convicts. He hoped. And he nodded.
"Good. Laurel, I'm going to give you the First Born Son... if anyone can talk some sense into the kid, you can. Besides, he's not likely to be much of a threat..." his gray eyes flickered, and for a second Dennis caught a glimpse of the pain and stark fear Laurel's bloody entrance had caused. "And you can't handle much of a threat in this condition, not now. Merry, you're going to get the Bound Woman, Amber, you tackle the Torn Prince. Anna, Jenna, do you think you two can handle the Torso?"
The two girls nodded solemnly, and it struck Dennis yet again how well Sebastian managed them all. He had, by process of elimination, given the youngest members of their mishmash family the least threatening ghost of all, although perhaps not necessarily the least frightening.
"I will attempt the Great Child and the Dire Mother..."
Merry caught her breath.
"... and we should all leave as soon as possible."
"Tomorrow morning," Laurel said, exchanging a glance with Dennis that conveyed volumes. The twins had gone on to chatter at Amber, and Merry was distracted with her father. He suspected that none of them heard her voice in his head. Merry's worried, and she might be right, but I think Sebastian can handle himself. Dennis nodded, not trusting himself to telepathy right now. "Tomorrow morning," she repeated, "Right now I think we all need some sleep. I'll get the twins home..."
Sebastian nodded, passing a hand over his eyes, suddenly looking very tired and every day of his hundred plus years. "All right. All right, look... go to bed. All of you. We have enough work to do tomorrow. And don't look at the clock," he caught Dennis in the middle of turning his head. "You'll just get even more tired."
He disappeared into his rooms.
Laurel stood, shakily, but somehow she looked much better than she had even a few minutes ago. He stared suspiciously at the twins, who looked more tired than they should have. For that matter, what kind of... his brain stopped in the middle of asking himself why two thirteen year old girls were over at their cousin's house at... some ugly hour of the night. Magical families. He shook his head.
"I'll get them back home," Laurel murmured, even as Amber staggered into Merry's room. "You three ... well, two. Get some sleep."
Merry chuckled, yawning. Through the open door Amber's feet could be seen dangling off the upper bunk. "Not a bad idea. You going to be okay to drive?"
"We'll make sure..."
"... she gets home safe."
Dennis shook his head and tottered into Merry's room. Then he stopped in mid stride as he realized what Amber had so neatly done. He could swear she wasn't snoring, but snickering in her sleep.
"Goddess, tomorrow's going to be exhausting..." Merry yawned, flopping onto the futon bunk and kicking her shoes towards the back of the room. She closed her eyes, her breathing starting to even out into sleep. Dennis watched, caught. "You really should get some sleep, you know."
He blinked. He had no idea how long he'd been staring. She had opened her eyes at some point... had he fallen asleep while standing there? "Right..."
Pause. He made no move towards the bed, which made her smile and roll over onto her side after the first minute or so. "You can crash on the bed, you know. I won't bite. And you probably wouldn't make it up the stairs anyway."
"Sure I..." he turned around, and somehow found himself facing the inside of the room again and leaning on the door. Sleep really did make one dizzy. "Oh."
"Come on, Dennis. I won't bite, and you need the sleep. We all need the sleep. If we're going to get anything done tomorrow." Her words were punctuated by yawns, and she was clearly falling asleep even as she tried to talk to him.
It was that more than anything else that drew him to sit by her on the bed, lean up against the wall and watch her curl up against the pillows. She was asleep within minutes, her breath softly blowing the few strands of hair that fell over her face, head tucked on her hands. He brushed her hair back from her face, watching the movements as though they belonged to someone else. Her hair was almost silken, and smelled of berries and lavender. It seemed to curl around his fingers and tug him down into sleep, a restful sleep that was blessedly free of dreams.
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The first sensation he registered when he woke up was warmth... all around him, and not just the warmth of being tucked up under too many covers. The second thing he noticed was softness, smooth skin, and the scent of raspberries and lavender. He pried his eyes open, squinting against the sunlight that crept unbidden into the room and seemed determined to blind them all.
Merry was curled up against him, head pillowed on his chest, arms around his waist, snuggled up somehow in her sleep. He wasn't sure which was more astonishing, that she had relaxed into his arms (into his arms? oh boy...) in the middle of the night or that he hadn't gone into migraine-inducing visions when she had. Even now he couldn't feel them threatening, and while physical contact with the Kane clan, living in the same house with them was probably as relaxing as a normal life for him was going to get, he had never felt this sense of peace before. It was blissfully relaxing...
And very distracting. He forced himself to get up, carefully swinging his legs over the side of the bed and ducking under the top bunk, letting Merry down gently so she didn't wake up. It was a futile effort, as it turned out.
"Time to get going?" she yawned. He nodded, wondering if he should say anything. "I'll drop you off at the school... There'll be someone there to meet you, Sebastian's arranged it." She frowned. "I don't think he actually slept."
Dennis hugged her suddenly, wanting to erase that worried frown, that look of fear in her eyes. "He'll be okay. He's been at this how long?"
She smiled a little. "Longer that all four of us put together, that's for sure. I know... it's just... I don't know. I wish he'd take better care of himself sometimes."
He didn't know what to say to that. He felt a sudden urge to kiss her forehead, stroke her hair, something. "He'll be okay. We all will." It was more confidence than he felt, but ...
"Are you going to be okay with this? Flying solo?" She looked up at him, and Dennis winced, almost wishing she hadn't asked. He still wasn't sure what had possessed him to volunteer, but... Laurel's bloody gashes flashed in his mind's eye again, along with desperate visions of the future? The past? He didn't know. Bloody women in Victorian dresses, bloody bodies of Merry and the twins. He staggered backwards a step, clutching his forehead. "Dennis?"
Her hands overlaid his, and the world went away. At least the bad parts of it did. Suddenly everything was muted. "I'm okay..." he took a deep breath, fighting down nausea. "I'm okay. I'm okay."
"Are you sure?"
No. I just had a splitting headache. I just had a vision of you dead, the twins dead, everyone dead. Everyone, everything I touch is dead, or ends up that way. "Yeah."
She touched his cheek, and he looked down to see her smiling shyly. It caught his heart, and the world fogged around the edges again. "Okay," she murmured, blushing for no apparent reason. As though in return he blushed, too.
"Are you ready for this?" He didn't want her to go. He didn't want any of them to go. But they were so much better than he was. They could handle themselves. He hoped.
"As ready as we're going to be. It'll be fine, Dennis. Trust me?" she smiled, and he had to smile back.
"I trust you."
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It's those damn ghosts I don't trust.
Dennis sighed, staring at the empty school yard and fighting back a thousand unhappy memories of his own childhood. Afternoons spent hiding from ordinary childhood bullies on the playground, not because he was particularly geeky or bookish (although he had been) but because he didn't want them to touch him, didn't want their violence in his head. Afternoons spent dodging the physical blows and the psychic assault. Teachers who didn't understand why he didn't want their would-be comfort, their hugs and their touches. Counselors who didn't understand why he knew what he knew, or understood what he did. Adults who had stared, cringed, or yelled at him when he blurted out what he knew, before he learned to sit still and keep his damn mouth shut. Kids who instinctively sensed someone in their midst who would always be an outsider and kept away.
He had really hated school. From elementary up through high school it had all been one never-ending cycle of ostracism, violence, counselors, parental yelling, and eventually silence and then more ostracism. Summer holidays had been the only brief respite, especially when he had found that one blissful job working in the library reshelving books. Books were good. Books didn't have memories, and the spirits that attached themselves to libraries didn't usually have any issues they wanted to share.
Dennis stood there for another few minutes, trying to work up the courage to go in. It wasn't, he was starting to realize, all the ghost, or even mostly the ghost that was making him nervous. It was the memories of all those hellish days spent in an institution where no one understood him or even cared enough to make the effort. Eighteen years of memories, just about. He held back a shudder.
And then he nearly screamed as a figure passed by a window. Nearly, because he also nearly bit his tongue off when he jumped. The figure paused at the edge, then moved back into the light where he could see it was (probably) the teacher Sebastian had arranged to be there to let him in. Thank god for small favors, at least the teacher didn't look dead. He walked up to the door, which the teacher was pushing open.
"Hey... you must be Dennis."
The man was ordinary looking enough at least, and only a little older than Dennis, or at least he looked it. He put his hand out to shake and Dennis tried very hard not to stare at him as though he were a poisonous snake.
"I don't do handshakes..." he said finally. "It's a... ghost ... kind of... thing."
Pause. "If you're a ghost, why do I have to open up the school for you?" It wasn't accusatory, just curious. Dennis wondered what kind of teacher took the presence of ghosts in stride.
"Oh, no, I'm not a ghost. I just see them. Too much." He hesitated, not sure how to say it. Merry, Sebastian, Amber... they had all recommended just to come out and say it to people who would believe him, other people who also had to deal with magic and ghosts and the supernatural in their lives. Was the teacher one of them? "I get this... psychometric... thing. When I touch people."
"Oh." The teacher looked torn between believing Dennis and believing a lifetime of indoctrination that ghosts and goblins and things that went bump in the night, didn't. He shrugged and gestured Dennis in. "Okay." Pause. "That can't be fun."
"It's no picnic..." Dennis relaxed a little. "I'm Dennis Rafkin."
"Daniel. Daniel Jameson." He smiled a little, gestured Dennis down the hall. "And the ghost is this way."
Dennis froze. "You know about the ghost?"
"Yeah... I'm the one that... called it in, I guess." He shrugged, and for a second Dennis wondered whether the teacher was really older than him as the man hunched over looking like a child waiting to be beaten. "I wasn't sure what it was at first, but the girls started to ... get strange, I guess. Stranger than usual, more depressed than usual."
Dennis thought back to what he knew of the Angry Princess. "Not surprising. The ghost's a teenaged girl who committed suicide, so she's probably affecting anyone who comes near her." They neared the bathroom, and Daniel pushed the door open.
"Teenage girl?" Daniel asked curiously.
Dennis nodded, looking around absently. It didn't look like she was here, which was a bit of a relief. On the other hand, it meant he had to get her here as well as banish her, which... well, he wasn't sure how to go about doing that. There were bloodstains on the wall, residue from her presence, but she was probably off roaming the halls of the school.
"Here..." Dennis slung his backpack off his shoulder, pulled out the couple pairs of glasses he'd snatched from the wreckage of Cyrus' house. He winced a little as he did so... no one in the household knew he had them, not even the witches. At least he thought they didn't. But sometimes he felt like he needed the crutch, and even if he didn't, Daniel couldn't see the ghost. He didn't really know why it was important that he show the ghost to the teacher. "Put these on."
Daniel did, then gave a high pitched sort of squeak as he looked around and seemed to skid on a pool of blood. "What is that?" he yelped.
Dennis blinked a little at the absurdity of it all, finding himself more calm than the person he was helping. "Blood. She cuts herself..."
Daniel stared at him. "Poor girl..."
Dennis blinked. There was a moment of brief empathy, a shared sensation of being outside everyone else, watching everyone else, and being unable to do anything about anything, being so far out of control and out of their depth.
As if to add to the sudden camaraderie they both jumped, shrieking, as the ghost walked through the wall with her knife. Dennis nearly skidded... on the floor, on a pool of blood, he couldn't have said which. Instinctively, he clutched and whatever was handy to keep him upright, which happened to be Daniel's shoulder. Memories flashed through his brain, strict parents telling him that everything he saw and felt was a lie, solace at the piano, curling up and trying to hide in the smallest patch of light from a house that was otherwise entirely dark, going out of his way to avoid shadows. Fear overwhelmed him, and he fought it back. Someone else's fear, he reminded himself. Keep it out.
The girl watched them, abstracted and interested in a distant sort of way.
"I hate it when that happens," Dennis muttered. Daniel, who was leaning up against a bathroom door and hyperventilating, could only nod.
"Do you always do that when you touch someone?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the ghost.
"Almost," Dennis murmured, also staring. The girl ghost seemed to fidget, uncomfortable with the scrutiny.
"Hey," Daniel said suddenly, making Dennis jump a little. "I'm Daniel, this is Dennis. Welcome to high school. Again." He smiled a little. Dennis thought briefly of Merry, of the same disarming, quiet shyness.
The girl ghost just stared at them, albeit with less hostility than she'd shown in the glass house.
"I guess you've already been around high schools before... so you already probably have seen everything there is to see. They're not much different..." Daniel laughed, high and nervous. He looked more scared than Dennis, which was a minor miracle. Dennis felt like he'd swallowed live goldfish.
"How are you doing?" he finally managed to ask. The girl looked at him with definite recognition and what he suspected was outright hatred. Not that he could blame her. In a way... in the only way that mattered, Kalina (that bitch) had been right. It had been his fault. "Better?"
"It's not much of a school," Daniel shrugged, "But it's what we've got. Pretty much like every other school you might have been to. Um..." He fidgeted. "So, are you doing okay?"
"I'm sorry about what happened..." Dennis murmured, trying to shut out everything but the task at hand. "I never meant... I didn't..." He sighed. He'd known exactly what he was doing. "I was desperate. And Cyrus was the only person who would actually talk to me like I was a person... at least, he acted like it." He laughed, bitter and abrasive. Daniel stared at him as though he was the ghost then, oddly, turned back to the Angry Princess.
"Everyone needs somewhere to belong, someone to talk to. Human beings are social creatures, but we're also very vicious. Those of us who get left on the outside... get hurt. And it's almost worse when we hurt each other."
Dennis winced. "Yeah."
The ghost girl screamed. She looked angry.
"There's no excuse for what I did to you. I know that... now. I've had... new teachers, I guess. Friends ... friends who know what it's like on the outside. Daniel's right, we shouldn't turn on each other ... like we do. I guess..." he paused.
Daniel and the girl stared at him.
"I guess it seems like there's not enough people... not enough affection to go around, it starts turning into a feeding frenzy. And the second any of us gets out it's like chum in the waters."
The girl mouthed the word 'chum' and actually started to giggle soundlessly. It was creepy.
"I don't have any answers... I always used to want answers, until I found out how hard they were to get. There's no excuse, no reason for what kids do to each other..."
"Even adults," Daniel said quietly. "You should see a parent social function. It's like an exquisitely staged fighting ring."
Dennis stared at the ground, not even looking at the girl anymore. "People keep saying how kids are so innocent. Kids aren't innocent. Not when they can rip each other to shreds like they do. It's just sick, and it's demented... and parents teach it to their kids, which is worse. So we all end up at each other's throats, and if you're not vicious enough to survive you get shoved to the bottom of the heap where you're curled up with your hands over your head to keep from getting hit..." he was babbling. He was laughing. Hysterical. "They keep saying it's a jungle out there, oh, they have no idea. It's a war out there, and ..."
Daniel stared at him, a little horror, a lot of sympathy. The peaceful calm of the morning seemed very far away. Even the ghost girl was looking at him with pity right now. Dennis straightened up, ran his fingers through his hair nervously, pushing it back from his forehead. "I don't know how to help you, kid," he admitted, sighing. "I wish I did. I just... I have no idea what I'm doing. These people I'm with now, they're trying to help me, but... I wish I knew if it was working. And I wish I knew... I don't know. That it was going to last. That they're not going to turn out to be a band of psychos like everyone else seems to be."
"They sent you out here by yourself. Sounds to me like they trust you, think you're capable of handling yourself pretty good. Sebastian said he had confidence in you." The ghost girl looked from Daniel to Dennis, thoughtful.
"I guess. I just wish I had some confidence in me. I still don't know how they manage to do it all... Laurel takes huge sucking chest wounds and keeps going, Merry somehow manages to handle both women and her father and the twins without stopping for breath, Amber... she can take on anything and keep fighting, she's not scared of anything. And Sebastian... he's ... I don't know. He's survived more than I ever want to go through, and ..."
The ghost girl was standing right in front of him, staring up at him with an expression he didn't know how to read.
"And you think you can't measure up? That you're not as good as they are?"
He nodded wordlessly. Didn't want to admit it. Didn't want to think about it.
"But you're here, aren't you? You're doing what has to be done. Lots of people don't."
"Yeah, so that makes me some kind of hero for doing what I'm supposed to do?" He knew he sounded petulant, and he didn't care. It galled even more because he was starting to realize that, here he was, supposed to banish a ghost, and he couldn't even do that.
"Sure. Especially with what you've been given. Like you said, kids don't tolerate other kids who are different, who don't conform to the very narrow standards. Most of those kids ... don't survive, in one way or another." Daniel winced at saying so near the ghost of someone who obviously 'hadn't survived.' "Grow up even more vicious than the people they grew up around, or suffering from clinical depression... or worse. Kids that grow up to be spree killers, drug addicts. It's a minor miracle anyone survives in one piece, much less finds any place they can really call home..."
Dennis shrugged, self-conscious. "Yeah, but that's just Merry... and Amber, and Laurel, and..."
"No, that's also you being willing to accept their help. A lot of people won't do that. You're trying to make up for what you've done, you're trying to pull your life back together. You're trying to fix your problems." There was a strange note in his voice, and he was wrapping his arms around his shoulders like he was cold. "In some ways that makes you stronger than any of them."
Dennis looked at Daniel, and then at the ghost girl. She was, strangely, smiling. Nodding. Most of her cuts, the deep gashes on her arms and chest and legs, were closing up, and her body was becoming a more natural color.
"I'm sorry... for what I did," Dennis sighed, staring at her, unconsciously mimicking Daniel's withdrawn and self-deprecating posture. "I wish I knew how to help you. I guess... I don't know. I just don't know what to do. From where I stand, it looks like your problems are over." It sounded bitter and hostile, even to him.
The ghost girl touched his cheek, smiling. Her fingers passed right on through his face, which was unnerving, but it was almost worth it for the feeling of apology and forgiveness that came with the spectral touch. She looked over at Daniel, thoughtfulness and sympathy, and smiled at him too. Her hands reached out to both of them as though she wanted to hug them, and she slowly disappeared.
Daniel stared at the spot where she'd been, startled and a little scared. "What was that?"
"I think," Dennis said slowly, "That was ghost-speak for keep up the good work."
They looked at each other, grinned a little, shook themselves. Suddenly the day seemed much less gloomy. Dennis could breath again, could think without the mind-numbing despair.
"You think she's gone for good."
He looked around. Even the bathroom looked brighter, and there was no trace of the blood that had stained the walls. "I think she's gone... I think she's finally come to terms with what happened to her... thanks." He tucked both pairs of glasses into his backpack. "And thanks for your help. Really... you've got a talent for this kind of thing." And where the hell were you when I was growing up, he wanted to ask, but he knew the answer to that one. Daniel Jameson would have been a classmate when Dennis was growing up, not a teacher.
Daniel flushed slightly and looked down. "I guess. There's some kids like her in some of my classes. I just wish it came as easily with them as it did today..."
They walked out of the school together, thinking. About what they could do, about the potential futility of their efforts. "Look, keep in touch, okay?" Dennis said finally as he flagged down a cab. "I know it's none of my business, but I think you could really use some of what they can do. I think..." There was no way to say it without sounding arrogant. "I really think you could use the help. With some of the... weirder stuff."
Daniel didn't look offended; quite to the contrary, he looked thoughtful. "I'll keep it in mind..." he nodded, stepping back as Dennis got into the cab. "Good luck."
"Thanks..." Dennis grinned wryly. "I think we're going to need it."