Author's Note:My deepest apologies for the delay in posting. And a million thanks to Shimegami-chan for the sage advice about the lingering unintended consequences of the chapter four re-write. All is well, and we proceed with. . .

Chapter 6

When I finally dragged myself back to reality, my head was muddled, the left side of my face bore an imprint of the rough boards of the picnic table, and my feet were freezing inside my wet shoes. As far as I could tell, I was alone; the picnic area was silent except for the rustle of the wind in the trees.

I found Valerie's Thermos lying in the grass a few feet away from the table. I picked it up and stuffed it into my backpack alongside my own, then switched on the Illuminator to light my way home. Alone or not, I stuck with my original plan, and walked home on my own two, wet feet. After all, Valerie might be watching.

I made it home by a quarter to ten. I mumbled something about having a headache and needing some sleep and barely acknowledged my mother's 'Good night, sweetie!' as I trudged up the stairs to my room. By ten o'clock I was warm and dry, dressed in my pajamas, seated cross-legged on my bed, staring at Valerie's Thermos on my desk and trying to figure out how I could possibly have done this any worse. (Well, I guess dead would have been worse.) I knew exactly where I had made my mistake. I sabotaged my best defense the moment I demonstrated that, even as a human, I am not entirely human.

My thoughts wheeled in circles. Should I try to contact Valerie tonight? Let her sleep on it and call her in the morning? I just couldn't let it end this way. I had to convince her to take the Thermos.

My head was throbbing. I retrieved the jumbo-sized bottle of ibuprofen from the drawer of my bedside table and shook three tablets into my hand.

"Water?" Jazz's entrance, half-filled glass in hand, was eerily well-timed. I wish I knew how she did that! I popped the pills into my mouth and nodded my thanks while gulping down the water. "Where are you hurt? Should I get the first-aid kit?" she asked briskly, professionally. I gave a tiny shake of my head, pointing to the tender spot behind my right ear. She sat on the bed beside me, then gently brushed my hair away from the site of the injury and explored it with her fingertips. "Hmm. The skin isn't broken, but it's pretty swollen. You should go the hospital, get your head examined."

"Very funny. You should totally write that one down in your Witty Banter notebook."

"You want to talk about it?"

"Not especially."

"I'll get you a bag of peas to use as an ice pack." She headed for the stairs, leaving the door slightly open. As her footsteps faded on the stairs, my computer bleeped. I put the empty glass on the bedside table and went over to my desk to read the message:

YOU HAVE THIRTEEN MINUTES LEFT.

TOMORROW, SAME TIME AND PLACE.

V

It was written in bold, uppercase letters, in a font so large that those two short sentences filled half the screen. It was terse, imperious, and rude. But it was also a sign of hope: she was willing to meet me again, to hear me out under the terms of the original agreement. The fact that she had knocked me out cold no longer seemed important. I immediately set about typing an answer:

Of course I'll meet you, tomorrow at eight. Don't worry, everything's going to be all right.

Danny

With my hand on the mouse, ready to send, I paused and stared at the message. Why did I say that everything would be all right? Was I trying to convince her not to worry, or was I trying to convince myself? She might not take it well, if she thought I was trying to pull her strings. I deleted that sentence. I tried substituting, "I really enjoyed talking with you tonight," but decided that sounded a little too smarmy and deleted that, too. I was struggling to compose a sentence around the word "appreciate" when I heard a faint footstep directly behind me.

I jumped up and spun around, knocking the chair to the floor as I rose up into the air and very nearly blew Jazz's head off. "Don't sneak up on me like that!" I yelled, a few wisps of unused power wafting upward from my clenched right fist.

"Whoa! Jesus, Danny, what's gotten into you? You nearly scared me to death!"

She had no idea how near it was. I was on a hair trigger. Valerie had frightened me far more than I realized, far more than I was willing to admit.

Jazz tossed me the bag of frozen peas, distracted by the enormous message on the computer. "What is that, some kind of death threat? Has Technus started announcing his plans by IM?"

"It's not Technus, and it's not a death threat." I held the peas against the tender spot on the back of my head as I dropped back down to the floor. "It's just Valerie, confirming that we'll meet again tomorrow night."

"Valerie–" She suddenly noticed the extra Thermos sitting on the back corner of the desk. "Oh my God– you're not actually planning to go though with it, are you? Tell Valerie you're. . . ?" She could read the answer in my guilty expression. "Oh no, don't tell me. . . you already told her! Valerie did that to you!"

I didn't answer, letting my silence speak for me. I put down the peas, uprighted the chair and sat back down at the keyboard, erased my earlier response and typed:

I'll be there.

Danny

"I trust her, Jazz. You don't know Valerie the way I do. She's a good person, she just hasn't had all the facts. I know she'll come around, now that she knows the truth. She won't hurt me." I sent the message, then logged off.

"Apparently, she already hurt you! What did she do, whack you over the head with a rock?"

"With this." I reached across the desk and touched the Thermos, which was still as good as new except for the shallow, two inch dent near the base.

"She knocked you over the head with the Thermos? The Thermos you were trying to give to her? Are you so dense that I have to draw you a diagram?"

"She was scared! I caught her off-guard. I didn't prepare her enough and she wasn't ready and I scared her. She reacted with her instincts, I can't blame her for that."

"I can. Hell, Danny, she knows where you live. She even knows which room is yours! Did you ever stop to think about that?"

"She's not going to bother me tonight." I pointed at her enormous message on the computer screen. "She's going to meet me tomorrow. Why can't you believe that I know what I'm doing? It's working pretty much how I practiced it with Sam. She's mad, but I know I'm getting through to her. She wants to meet again tomorrow night, she wants to finish this."

"She wants to finish you." She read from Valerie's message, "'You have thirteen minutes left.' And what the hell happens at the end of thirteen minutes?"

"I give her the Thermos."

"What is it with the Thermos? She's armed to the teeth with weapons that can hurt you, that could probably kill you, why would you give her something else she can use against you?"

"Because I trust her."

With that, I headed for my bed. I crawled between the covers and rolled onto my left side. Jazz sat down on the edge of the bed and gently laid the bag of frozen peas across the sore spot on my head. "At least. . . promise me you'll take Sam and Tucker along to back you up. Valerie doesn't have to know they're there, but they can help you if she. . . ."

I sighed. I was suddenly very sleepy and it took a lot of effort just to answer her. "Tucker is at his cousin's wedding in Dayton, and Sam's parents took her up to the lake house for the long weekend."

"Which means they're not here to talk some sense into you. How convenient. Fine: then I'll come."

"No, you won't," I murmured.

"You can't stop me from following you," she retorted.

I closed my eyes and snuggled down into my pillow. "Jazz, you do not have the slightest idea how many different ways I can stop you from following me."

I must have drifted off to sleep soon after that, because I remember dreaming that I flew Jazz out to the bird refuge on Petersen Island and left her with a family of pelicans who offered to teach her how to fish while I went to the park to meet Valerie. When I awoke several hours later, Jazz was fast asleep in a chair near my window, her hand resting lightly on the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick in her lap. I got rid of the warm bag of peas, then overshadowed her long enough to get her back to her own bed. I knew she would resent the intrusion, but if I woke her up we'd just have another argument and I didn't have the strength for that.

Sunday came and went with surprising calm. Although I caught Jazz staring at me during breakfast, she didn't say much of anything. If she remembered that she had fallen asleep in my room and woken up in her own bed, she didn't mention it. I spent most of the day at the town library, working on a school assignment and. . . oh hell, I was hiding. Hiding from Jazz, hiding from the apparition of a red-clad figure sneaking up on me from behind. . . .

After supper, I retreated to my room to psych myself up. I reviewed the status of my plan, tried to anticipate the kinds of questions Valerie would ask, revised my answers. I was fairly confident that I was well-prepared for any variation. I was just putting my shoes on for the walk to the park when Jazz appeared in the doorway, cradling a musty, leather-bound book in her arms.

"Danny, you have read Crispus Farthington-Smythe's Essential Guide to Ethereal Spirits, haven't you?"

"Oh gosh yes, every night before I go to sleep," I said sarcastically, earning an annoyed glare from Jazz, who should have known better than to ask such a stupid question. I relented. "Sam read it, gave me the Cliff Notes version."

The last thing I wanted to do at that moment was get into a discussion of academic ghost-ology with my sister, but there's no stopping Jazz when she's got her scholarly on. She closed the door and stood with her back against it, then spoke with all the dry authority of old Farthington-Smythe giving a lecture at Oxford: "'It is the nature of a ghost to be obsessive,'" she began.

"Jazz–"

"Just shut up and listen! Farthington-Smythe wrote, 'It is the nature of a ghost to be obsessive. It is this obsessive nature that ties the spirit to the human plane, unable to complete its journey to the Other Side. But the obsessive nature is also a ghost's greatest weakness. Obsession causes a ghost to repeat unproductive behaviors, to revisit dangerous situations, to make the same mistakes again and–'"

"Technus blabbers on about his plans, Skulker's at the mercy of Tuck's PDA, Desiree has to grant every wish, even the ones that work against her! I get it!"

"You have an obsessive nature, Danny. It's part of who and what you are, now, and you need to be aware of it and accept it and make allowances for it." I glared at her, but she just kept going. "Obsession is a weakness. You've been muttering about giving a Thermos to Valerie for weeks. When Mom and Dad decided to produce some new ones, you started talking about it out loud. I know you've been rehearsing this scheme with Sam, and that she told you that you were nuts. We never thought you'd go through with it!If you actually do this. . . if you give a Thermos to Valerie, how do you know she won't turn it on you?"

"I trust her," I muttered.

"You trust her. That makes no sense, whatsoever. She hasn't given you one single, solitary reason to trust her. She wants to kill you!"

"She didn't take it!" I exploded. I grabbed Val's Thermos from my desk and shook it at Jazz. "I told her who I am, what I am, what this thing can do to me, and she left it behind. I trust her!"

"After she knocked you out cold. She's had a full day to think about this. She's had a full day to let this fester. And I'm asking you, right now: What if you're wrong?"

"I'm not wrong." I shoved the Thermos into my backpack and slung the pack over my shoulder. Jazz glared at me and braced her back against the door. "This is ridiculous, Jazz You can't stop me from leaving." I went intangible and lifted both feet off the floor. If she wouldn't move out of the way, I'd phase right through her.

She stepped to the side, opening the way for me to slip past. I became solid again and headed for the door. As I drew even with her, she touched my shoulder and pleaded softly, "What if she traps you in the Thermos and never lets you out?"

I couldn't answer that. There was no good answer for that– at least, no answer that wouldn't make Jazz even more anxious and overprotective than she already was. With weary resignation, I said, "If I don't make it home by morning, you know where to start looking for me."