Chapter 4

Somewhere in the midst of their search through the attic, certain events began to stick out in Paul's mind.

Emma's mood was, as a general rule, cheerful and talkative, as he'd come to expect. But on every few days or so the silence returned, and Emma was never very forthcoming with the reason for it.

Not that it was any of his business.

It was one of those days again. Emma sat in the window, flipping through a notebook, while Paul did the same on the other side of the room, glancing at her occasionally, wishing she would say something—anything.

To his surprise, she did. She closed the notebook in her lap and looked at him. "Paul?" He looked up, waiting. "Do you ever think about death?"

He gaped at her. Of all the things he'd expected her to say, that hadn't been it. The correct answer to the question, of course, would have to be all the damn time, since he dealt with ghosts every day. But she didn't know about that, so instead, he said "Uh… I guess. As much as anyone else does, anyway."

She nodded, and turned to gaze out the window.

Knowing from experience not to try to push her, Paul went back to reading the journals.

But she wasn't finished yet. "Do you think there's a God?"

Paul stopped and thought about that for a moment. Considering his own experiences, he'd thought on the subject quite a lot. "I don't know. I guess so." He waited a beat. "Do you?"

She didn't answer for a long time. "I don't know," she finally said. And then the silence returned.

For whatever reason, that night he managed to win the argument for taking her home. Well, sort of. They compromised—he could take her home. On foot. In retrospect, Paul realized she had probably insisted on it to dissuade him.

No such luck.

As they were walking—again, in silence—someone called out, "Hello, Emma." Paul saw Emma stiffen and close her eyes. He glanced in the direction of the voice, but whoever it had been had already disappeared.

"Who was that?" he asked, glancing at Emma, and feeling uneasy at the look on her face. He kept looking over his shoulder, as though expecting someone to pounce from the shadows.

"No one," she said. She started walking faster and he had to increase his stride to keep up with her.

"Okay, so it was no one." When she just kept walking, he ventured, "Is this 'no one' the reason why you've been acting so weird?"

She stopped suddenly and whirled to face him so quickly that he knocked into her. He grabbed her arms to keep her from falling back, which only resulted in her trying to move away from him—he should have known better than to try to touch her when she was like this—and before he knew it, they'd fallen over onto the grass, him laying atop her.

"Get off of me," she huffed, pushing at his chest. "And I'm not—"

He didn't what made him do it. Later, when he looked back on it, he couldn't remember what he'd been thinking at that moment.

But right then, he leaned down and kissed her.

Could kissing a pretty girl be counted as a religious experience? Probably not, considering they were lying on a patch of grass on the side of the road. But at any rate, it felt heavenly all the same.

When he finally pulled back, she was staring at him kind of dazed. He grinned, trying not to feel too happy with himself—aw, hell, who was he kidding? Who wouldn't feel a little full of himself if he got that reaction from a girl he'd been kissing? "You're not what?"

She blinked, like she was trying to remember what she'd been saying. "I'm not weird."

He laughed, and leaned down to kiss her again. Only this time she was ready for him and turned her head to the side, so he got the corner of her mouth instead. Still, it was a start. "No, you're definitely not."

They continued their walk without anymore mishap, but when Paul looked down at Emma, he saw that her cheeks were very, very red.

He was grinning the entire walk home.


"What are you doing tomorrow night?"

Emma froze, turning to stare at Paul like he'd lost his mind. Which he quite obviously had. It had been a week since the kiss, and nothing had happened since then. Well, at least not while she was with him. But that was another matter entirely.

"I… nothing, I guess."

"Great. What do you think about going out for dinner?" Paul smiled. "We could go down to this restaurant by the beach, if you want, or—"

"Dinner?" She gaped at him. "You mean a date?"

Paul stuck his hands in his pockets, leaning against the wall. "Yeah. A date." He shrugged.

"I don't think so." She turned away from him, her cheeks burning. "I—I have stuff to do."

"Didn't you just say you had nothing to do tomorrow night?" When Emma turned to stare at him, he raised his eyebrows and smiled. "So you can go then."

Emma discovered very quickly that life was much easier if you just didn't argue with Paul Slater.