Haunted Heroine Read online

  Damn. Now I was sounding a little too much like an investigator. I needed to get back into casual mode. I’d try to return to the subject of Julie later, in a more organic way.

  “So, what else should I know about Morgan?” I said, pasting on a big smile. “Any other d-bag professors, besides Professor Covington? Any school urban legends?”

  “Covington is the biggest d-bag, though not everyone thinks so,” Pippa said, her face turning contemplative. “Some folks find his opinions, you know, cutting edge or whatever. Provost Glennon loves his shit, for some reason.” She gave an exasperated shrug. “But otherwise, all the profs are pretty cool. The only other one you should avoid being assigned to is Leonora Quinn. She’s the head of the Ethnic Studies department.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” I said, trying to work out her look of disdain.

  “She’s white.” Pippa rolled her eyes. “A white professor who’s the head of Ethnic Studies?” She gave Shelby an “am I right?” look and Shelby actually smiled a little.

  “That does bring up a lot of questions for me,” I said, grinning at her.

  “And as for school legends . . .” Pippa took a swig of her drink, her bangle bracelets jangling. “I mean. Shelby had an up close and personal encounter with one just last week, didn’t you, Shel?”

  I straightened in my seat, sipping the non-alcoholic punch and trying to look interested, but not too interested. This was what I’d been hoping for.

  Shelby’s smile fell and she stiffened, clearly uncomfortable. “Yeah,” she muttered.

  “She saw one of the campus ghosts,” Pippa squealed, pumping a fist in the air. “And we’ve got a lot of them.”

  “Ooh, tell me more,” I said, attempting to relax my face into an expression that was eager and open. “I love ghost stories.”

  “There’s not much to tell.” Shelby shrugged and frowned into her cup. “I saw one, I ran from it, I accidentally crashed into a tree. It wasn’t very fun, honestly.”

  “Oh my god, you’re such a spoilsport,” Pippa said, thwacking Shelby in the arm with her nearly empty cup. Her bracelets clanged together so violently, Shelby winced. “Entertain our cool TA, Shel! We want her to be our friend, we should be explaining to her how Morgan is way more awesome than stupid-ass Professor Covington makes it seem.”

  “Why are you poking at me?” Shelby growled, nudging Pippa away from her. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

  “But talking about it might help you,” Pippa exclaimed. “Girl, you keep too much inside! You gotta let loose and tell people how you feel, otherwise . . .”

  “Otherwise what?!” Shelby spat out. “I’m not like you, Pippa, I don’t feel the need to share every single thought that comes into my head.”

  “I. Do. Not!” Pippa shrieked, socking Shelby in the arm to emphasize every syllable. “I’m just more freeeeee than you!” She swept out her arm, punch sloshing over the rim of her cup again. One of her bracelets nearly flew off her wrist. Her speech was becoming looser, her gestures sloppier. The punch was definitely taking effect.

  “Are you really wasted off of one cup of punch?” Shelby said, shaking her head. “Pips, come on. You should start drinking water now.”

  “Bleah, way to be absolutely no fun, Shelby,” Pippa said, sticking her tongue out. She stumbled to her feet, waving her cup around. “Nice to officially meet you, El . . . Elish . . . Cool TA.” She gave me a big smile, then took a dramatic gulp of her punch. “Welp. I am feeling good. Off to finally tell Natalie David I’ve been totally in love with her for the past two years!”

  “What the . . .” Shelby shook her head as Pippa stumbled off. “For real? Pips has been going out of her way to not tell Natalie David that. It’s the only time I’ve seen her hold a feeling inside instead of just blurting it out to whoever happens to be in earshot. She keeps saying the moment has to be exactly right.” Shelby frowned at her cup again. “This punch must be really strong.”

  “I also have a best friend with a, uh, big personality.” I gave her a smile of solidarity. “Sometimes it’s hard for her to understand why I don’t want to do things exactly the way she does them—or the way she thinks I should be doing them.”

  “Yeah?” For the first time, Shelby looked at me with genuine interest. “I love Pips. I’m new here, and she’s the first person who really went out of her way to make friends with me.”

  “You’re new here too?” I said, seizing on another tidbit we had in common.

  “Transferred in at the beginning of the semester,” Shelby said. She studied me, her gaze unreadable. “I didn’t know they let people come in mid-semester, though.”

  “I think there are different rules for grad students,” I said with a hand wave. I quickly checked my nails—still pristine. Eliza Takahashi’s nails. I breathed deeply, trying to remain aware of the glamour like Scott had instructed. “Anyway, Pippa seems really sweet—I think she wants you to feel like you can confide in her, tell her what’s bothering you.”

  “I know, I know,” Shelby said, tipping her head back against the couch and frowning at the ceiling. “She means well. But that ghost thing, it was just so . . .”

  “So . . . what?” I said, my tone as gentle and non-intrusive as possible.

  Shelby lifted her head and studied me, her gaze once again unreadable. I took another sip of my fruity drink and ordered myself not to squirm under this girl’s uncomfortably direct stare. There was something so . . . still about her. Something that seemed to indicate she was feeling way more than she let on, holding everything inside so tightly, afraid to let even a little bit come spilling out.

  Hmm. I could relate.

  Shelby finally stopped staring at me for a moment and took a drink, then trained her gaze on me again. This time, though, her eyes looked more dreamy, a bit less focused. Maybe she was getting a little drunk as well?

  “The ghost,” she said. “It . . . talked to me.”

  “It said something?” Huh. The campus security report had described the ghost wailing at Shelby, but there’d been no mention of it saying actual words.

  “Yeah . . .” She nodded vehemently and took another hefty gulp of punch. “I was walking across the courtyard in front of Morgan Hall, and it was so early in the morning. The grass was wet, but I love walking through that courtyard, it helps me clear my head after crew practice. I love hearing the bell tower right at seven—it feels like no one else in the world is awake, except for me. And sometimes all that wet grass under my feet wakes me up even more.” She smiled slightly. Her gaze had gone even dreamier, like she was talking more to herself than to me. “I’d heard of that ghost, of course—it’s one of the oldest known ghosts at Morgan,” she continued. “I’d never seen it before, but I knew immediately what it was. I mean, this bluish glowing woman in oldey-timey garb zooming her horse-drawn wagon across campus, what else could it be? And then . . .” She trailed off, frowning into her cup. And paused for an uncomfortably long time.

  “It saw you?” I prompted.

  “Yes!” she exclaimed, her head snapping up. She trained her dreamy gaze on me. Her words were starting to slur together a bit. “Our eyes met, and she got this . . . look. Like she hated me more than anything in the whole entire world.” Shelby shuddered, cradling her cup against her chest. “And then she charged. She and her horses and wagon were barreling straight toward me. My instincts took over and I bolted.”

  She lapsed into silence again, her attention turning back to her cup.

  “And you said the ghost talked to you?”

  “It did.” Shelby’s eyes widened. “At first, it was this inhuman kind of wail, like it was screaming at me. No words. But then . . .” Her head listed to the side, her frown deepening. “It said . . .”

  I leaned in closer, waiting. I stared at her so hard, her features started to blur . . . wait a minute. I shook my head. Everything was soft
around the edges, like someone had smeared Vaseline over my vision. Was this punch affecting me, too? How was that possible? I’d taken the non-alcoholic version . . . hadn’t I?

  I snuck a glance at Aveda across the room to see if she was looking at all sober. Maybe our cups had gotten switched. Her head was thrown back and she was laughing uproariously, her cheeks flushed bright red.

  Well, that answered that—Aveda always got a full-on Asian flush when she drank, something not even Scott’s most advanced glamours could hide. I reached up to touch my own face. My cheek was definitely warmer than usual. Perhaps the non-alcoholic punch had some sort of . . . fake alcohol? Or extra sugar? Something that simulated a buzz?

  I shook my head, trying to lose the wonky feeling overtaking me, and refocused on Shelby. She’d trailed off and was staring into space, swirling the last few drops of punch around in her cup.

  “What did the ghost say?” I prompted.

  She turned to me. Her face was flushed too, but her eyes were still dreamy.

  “It told me my worries about transferring to a new school were exactly right,” she said. “That I was destined to fail here and I should quit while I’m ahead. Those were things I’d thought to myself—nearly word for word—but I’d never actually said them to anybody. It was like the ghost read my mind or something. I was so freaked out, I wasn’t looking where I was going and ran directly into that tree.” She trailed off again and stared straight ahead. “I . . . I don’t know why I just said all that. I haven’t wanted to talk about that with anyone, not even Pips. So why did I just tell you—”

  “Sheeeeeeel . . . ohmygod, Shel!”

  Shelby and I whipped around in unison to see Pippa waving wildly from the other side of the room, where she seemed to be engaged in a full-on make-out session with a girl sporting hip clunky glasses and a shaved head. Natalie David, I presumed.

  “Shelby!” Pippa shrieked, pointing at Natalie—who didn’t seem to care since her face remained thoroughly buried in Pippa’s neck. “Look, I told her! I told her I’m in love with her annnnnnd—” She was cut off by Natalie David’s lips connecting with hers.

  “Oh god,” Shelby muttered. “I better go break that up or it’s going to end in utter disaster—which I’ll have to clean up tomorrow.”

  “Really? It looks like they’re getting along pretty well.” In fact, it looked like they were trying to eat each other’s faces off—“pretty well” was an understatement.

  “That’s always the beginning stage with Pips,” Shelby said, downing the rest of her punch. “Right before everything devolves. Trust me. See ya later, Eliza.”

  “Later,” I said, but she was already bounding to the other side of the room, ready to save Pippa from whatever disaster was about to unfold.

  I leaned back against the couch and took a sip of my drink, staring into its fluorescent depths.

  “Elizaaaaaa!” Aveda—who had moved beyond merely flushed, and was now red as a fire engine—plopped herself next to me on the couch with a resounding whump. “Having a good time?!” she bellowed in my ear. “Because I am!”

  “Awesome,” I said, wincing a little. “Did you find Tess?”

  “Nooooo,” she slurred out, frowning at her nearly empty cup. “They are most definitely not here. I talked to their friends . . .” Aveda gestured to the couch across the room, and a gaggle of students raised their cups to her. “But none of them know where they are—I don’t think Tess made it to the party, actually.”

  “Okay,” I said, turning that bit of non-information over in my mind. “Did Tess’s friends have any intel about the haunting they experienced? You were talking to them for quite a while.”

  Aveda’s eyebrows drew together. “No. But they sure wanted to tell me all their other problems. I got detailed insight on Nafiza’s beef with everyone else on the swim team—apparently she’s an oversleeper and they won’t even hold the bus for a second before meets. And Kit over there, they’re having issues with their girlfriend’s family, but they can’t actually bring themselves to talk to their girlfriend about it. And Yumi . . .” Aveda stopped and frowned. “Huh. Kinda weird how they all just confided in me, eh? I guess I’m really getting the hang of the college thing. Or I must have one of those faces.” She gave me a sloppy, drunken smile.

  I snorted. “You do not have one of those faces. You have a face that, like, demands your orders be followed. Not a face that inspires strangers to spill their most intimate secrets, which—”

  “God, Eliza.” Aveda gave me a reproving look. “What’s with the sudden verbal essay on what my face looks like? Usually you have a freaking filter.”

  “I . . .” I stared back at my drink. I did suddenly feel like vocalizing whatever happened to be in my head, letting all my thoughts spill out, no matter what they were. I turned to the party chaos, my brain hazily taking in the scene.

  It looked like Shelby had broken up the Pippa/Natalie kiss-fest, and now Pippa was speaking to her very emphatically, gesturing all over the place. Over by the bar, two students were sobbing inconsolably as another tried to comfort them. And in the middle of the dance floor, yet another declaration of long pent-up love seemed to be happening, one girl on her knees and speechifying to another.

  “Wow,” I murmured. “This party is wild.”

  Aveda gazed out at the party, sizing everyone up. “There does seem to be a metric fuckton of drama happening. I guess that means we’re getting the full experience! Was the other dorm party you went to like this?”

  “It seemed more sedate,” I admitted. “Although I don’t totally remember it, thanks to the whole being drunk off my ass thing.”

  “Maybe we should talk to the bartender again, get her take,” Aveda said.

  We both turned to the bar—but our friend the Perky Bartender appeared to have left her post. There was no one there now.

  “Guh,” Aveda said. “Somehow even more unhelpful in her absence.”

  “What?” In spite of myself, I giggled. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “Of course it does,” Aveda said, straightening her spine and attempting to give me one of her imperious looks. “Because, like . . . she was unhelpful before, but now she’s extra unhelpful in her absence, because she’s not even here . . .”

  “But you said ‘somehow,’” I countered, jabbing her in the arm with my index finger. “If that’s the logical conclusion, then there should be no ‘somehow.’ ‘Somehow’ confuses your whole ideol . . . ideolooooooogy.” I’d been trying to say that last word extra carefully, but it just came out extra long. I shook my head, trying to clear the muddled fogginess that seemed to have descended over me.

  “Oh my god,” Aveda said, her eyes widening. “Are you somehow wasted after drinking non-alcoholic punch? God, Eliza, you’re such a lightweight! Does that mean your baby’s wasted, too?!”

  She leaned down and tapped gently on my stomach. “Hello?” she whispered to my belly button. “Are you wasted in there, Little Galactus Tanaka-Jones?”

  “Don’t call them that!” I said, trying to sound indignant. Instead, I exploded into giggles. That just made her giggle. And before we knew what was happening, we were both doubled over on the couch, tears streaming down our cheeks.

  “Listen!!!” a voice screamed out, piercing the chaos rippling through the room. Aveda and I both attempted to sit up straight, still giggling, and craned our necks, trying to find the source. “It’s that time you’ve all been waiting for,” the voice continued. I finally located where it was coming from—the far right corner of the basement, where a girl with long purple braids was waving her hands over her head and shouting out at the crowd. “It is time for . . .” She lowered her voice dramatically, scanning the room. “Mara Dash karaoke!”

  “Oh my gawd!” someone shrieked.

  “Ugh, fuck no!” countered someone else.

  “Don’t let Brenda pic
k the first song,” a third voice grumbled behind me. “Last time, she chose the extended piano version of ‘Hey Jude.’ It lasted for fucking ever. And was a real downer on top of that.”

  “Not true,” another voice muttered—presumably Brenda.

  “Elizaaaaa!” Aveda shook my shoulder, her eyes wide and shiny. “Come on, we have to do it! Karaoke is our thing!”

  “It’s only ‘our thing’ when we have to sing in order to vanquish demons,” I said, batting her hand away. “Which weirdly has happened more than once.” I giggled again at the ridiculousness of it all.

  Before I could protest further, she was grabbing my hand and dragging me through the crowd. I managed to set my punch cup down somewhere.

  “Ahhhhh,” said the girl with the purple braids as we approached. “Awesome—always a challenge to get that first volunteer. What are y’all singing?”

  “‘Eternal Flame,’ of course,” Aveda said. “By The Bangles.”

  “It’s an, um, older song,” I said, when Purple Braids gave me a blank look.

  “Sure, sure, let’s see,” she said, scrolling through the codes on the small karaoke machine set up in the corner. Someone else handed us mics. “Got it!” Purple Braids said, tapping in the code. “Wow us, you brave souls.”

  I looked at Aveda as the opening plink of the piano wafted through the room. She was holding the mic in a death grip, brow furrowed in determination, counting herself in. I turned and swept my gaze over the rest of the room—so many fresh-faced college students, now temporarily distracted from all the arguing and kissing and other drama-filled antics they’d been indulging in. They were just staring at us, drunk but curious, waiting for the new TAs to either blow everyone away or seriously embarrass themselves.

  What the hell were we doing? Hadn’t we been trying not to blow our cover? And what if my glamour started malfunctioning again—

  My runaway train of thought was cut short by a harsh, screechy, thoroughly off-key sound—Aveda attempting to sing the opening notes of “Eternal Flame.”