hears what I didn’t admit—that I didn’t deny the existence of ghosts and that her nightmares and her fears might have something to do with that. He stands and walks away from me toward the window seat where Mom sits. He stands next to her with his arms crossed and stares past the glass as if that can help his anger.
Mom looks up at him and then at me. “He’s angry with you.”
I nod because he is, and I understand why. Lucy shifts on the couch and studies me.
“I saw you nod,” Lucy whispers. “Are you talking to your mom now?”
Sawyer turns his head and looks at us. “I didn’t hear you, Lucy. You’ll need to speak up.”
“Because I wasn’t talking to you,” she answers.
He goes back to staring out the window and while he looks incredibly tall and strong, he also appears very lost. I ache for him. He’s seventeen, and he’s a dad to his sister and a parent to his mom. I’m not sure anyone would know how to fix this, and I’m certainly not helping.
I crouch in front of Lucy and she reaches out and touches one of my curls.
“Can you see my mom?” I whisper.
She shakes her head. “Can you see the monster downstairs?”
Lucy appears crestfallen as I shake my head as well.
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t real,” she whispers, and her words, for some odd reason, break my heart. Lucy says there’s a monster living downstairs, Glory has said the same thing, and a sickening sensation causes me to flush hot.
There’s something in this house, something evil, and it’s threatening Lucy. My eyes stray to the two shells and rolls of sage still on the kitchen counter.
“If you use that sage, it will drive me out.” Mom appears in front of me and her eyes are angry. This fury baffles me, causes a pit of sadness that I’ve disappointed her, but I’m confused as to what to do.
“Lucy’s scared,” I whisper.
“And you’ll be alone. Is that what you want?”
Alone. Anguish rolls through me, painful shards of glass tearing through my soul. “No.”
“No to what?” Sawyer asks from across the room and my head whips in his direction. Crazy. It’s there, just a hint of it in his expression. He senses something’s not right—not right with me. My heart pounds that I’ve been caught—by him.
The door opens and Dad plows in. He’s a focused steamroller and the whole world stops when he sees me, sees Sawyer, and then his eyes fall on Lucy. Worry. Dad wears it like a second skin. He worried for years about Mom, has worried incessantly about me, and now he has taken on the heavy burden of worrying about Sawyer and Lucy.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Dad says to Sawyer, “but I walked through your apartment. Everything looks in place.”
Lucy wraps the long arms of the sweatshirt around herself. “No monsters?”
Sawyer glares at me and I wish I could disappear.
Dad softens. “No. There’s no such things as monsters.”
Sawyer crosses the room, and Lucy goes willingly into his arms. “Thank you for taking care of Lucy and checking the apartment. There must have been a misunderstanding between me and Mom about our schedules involving Lucy. I promise it won’t happen again.”
I will Sawyer to look at me as he leaves, but he doesn’t, causing my heart to hurt. Unable to stand this, I walk after him and he stomps down the stairs. Each loud thud on the stairs a dismissal to me. He reaches the first floor, rounds for his apartment and I call out to him from over the banister. “Sawyer.”
I expect him to keep walking, but he pivots quickly on his heels. “She’s important to me. More important than your need to prove something that doesn’t exist.”
He means Lucy, he means my need to prove to my dad ghosts are real. As if she knows she’s part of the reason and is embarrassed about it, Lucy hides her head in the crook of his neck.
“I know,” I say.
Sawyer shakes his head in disappointment, as if I could never understand. “Tell Lucy that none of what you said is real. Tell her ghosts are just stories. Tell her you lied.”
Lucy lifts her head. She wants me to tell her that I was wrong, but I’m not wrong. Ghosts are real. They are. They have to be.
“I like you,” Sawyer says. “More than like, but when I’m pushed against a wall, I’ll choose my sister every time.”