Luminosity (Gravity Series #3) (The Gravity Series) (21 page)

“Can we move on from the family reunion?” Jenna asked.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Grandma, I have some questions about what you used to see. I wanted to call you up and see if I could talk to you.”

I glanced up, feeling like we were not alone, and saw the girl in gingham from my visit to Dark. I froze. She was leaning up against a tall tombstone with her arms crossed, glaring daggers at me. Jenna caught me looking and glanced in that direction, too. I blinked, and the girl disappeared.

“Who was that?” Jenna asked.

“I don’t know. But she keeps popping up. It’s getting irritating,” I said.

I spoke a little more to the grave, but nothing happened. In the end I was rambling, watching the candle flames flicker to the bottom.

“How long do we sit here before we declare this a failure?” Jenna asked. “I’m starting to feel tired. I think that holding hands sort of drains my energy or something.”

A chill filled the air against my skin. Shadow figures started creeping out from the skeletal trees and behind the tall angel statues. They were slow but made big, even strides towards us.

“Whoa,” Jenna exhaled, her eyes wide and fixed on the shadow shapes. “They’re coming right for us. What do we do?”

Both of us darted up and raced towards the tall stone fence. The shadows kept advancing, their blazing red eyes boring through us. Their long, hazy arms and legs twitched as they shambled closer.

I looked around frantically for an escape. We were in the corner of the cemetery. There was no way out.

“Can’t you climb the wall?” Jenna asked, sounding as scared as I felt.

“No, there aren’t any footholds in the stone. You should go.”

“But I don’t want to leave you.”

The shadows were closing in now, only a few feet away. Fear blasted through me, and I started shaking uncontrollably. I hadn’t felt so scared since Warwick held a gun to me.

Jenna, always headstrong, punched her fist towards the closest shadow. Her hand passed right through it and the shadow dispersed like smoke. After hesitating, I did the same, waving my hand through another dark figure.

“It’s like they’re not solid enough here,” I said, mystified.

“Yet,” Jenna said.

“So, how do we get out of here?”

“Think of it like running through smoke,” Jenna said, her grip tightening on my hand. “Just hold your breath.”

We launched into a run, crossing through the shadows. I didn’t feel a thing, and the shadows faded away as we ran out of the graveyard towards home.

###

The rest of the summer zoomed past, growing hotter by the day, but I was indoors so much I didn’t notice. I read a lot and visited Theo at her job. A few times, Alex and I hung out at Dante’s over milkshakes.

The shadows stayed away. I put the necklace back in the box to recoup for a while; the headache I’d had after the night in the graveyard lasted for three days, like an icepick repeatedly stabbed into my temple.

Claire only dragged me to one more Thornhill function, a flower sale supposedly benefiting local charity. But I grumbled in the corner the whole time, apparently embarrassing her, and she revoked her invitation. She still went to the meetings with clockwork regularity. Each time she’d come home tired and dazed, breezing right past me and into her office.

In all this time alone and consorting with Jenna, I hatched a plan.

I tested out the limits of the invisibility with Jenna for several weeks. We walked around local places, holding hands like wayward toddlers, and tested to see if anyone would see or hear us.

At first, Jenna could only manage five or ten minutes. But we had soon worked up to forty-five minutes.

We wandered around the local strip mall, dodging into the coffee shop. We passed effortlessly through the small crowd teens and old folks getting coffee and chatting.

“See anything interesting?” I asked.

She nodded to a nearby table where a youngish guy was reading a heavy novel. “He’s got a porno hiding inside that.”

I wrinkled my nose and looked away. As my head turned, I happened to see a strange man hunched by the postcard rack. He kept darting his head around, his baseball cap pushed low. I could only see his back, but as he moved off, I saw he was dragging his left leg a little.

“That’s McPherson,” I whispered to Jenna. We followed him out of the coffee store and down the sidewalk. He turned his head and stopped and stared at girls as they walked past.

“McPherson’s a perv, now?” Jenna said in distaste.

“I don’t know if that’s it,” I said, my eyes trained on him. The other people milling around seemed uncomfortable getting close to him and kept a wide berth. He ducked into a clothing store, keeping his head bent down, as though to prevent people recognizing him.

“We need to get closer to him and see what the hell he’s up to,” I said. Jenna nodded.

We went into the store, which was crowded with weekend shoppers. Many of them were young girls. McPherson got close to a trio of teens, shadowing them. Then he shook his head and went towards another girl. She peered over her shoulder, noticed him and scurried out of the store without her purchases.

A tag danged at the back of McPherson’s baseball cap, like he’d snatched it from somewhere to conceal himself. The more he stumbled around, the more pronounced the limp became.

“Won’t do. Won’t do,” McPherson was muttering. “Something precious. Something precious.”

Jenna and I exchanged a worried glance. The woman behind the check out counter stared at McPherson with a worried expression and picked up her phone.

“Whoo, boy. I guess you’re not the only one who’s gone Smeagol,” Jenna said.

Whatever was happening was getting worse.

###

Henry and I were in our spot on the hill again, soaking up the late August heat. His time at the office was beginning to dwindle, with fewer things that Phillip could keep him busy with. He carved out chances now, and without my parents to tell me no, I had a free schedule. The white ghosts of dead dandelions dotted the aging grass around us.

He’d brought me a full bag of chocolate covered popcorn, a gourmet brand in a fancy, satiny white bag. “I was going to bring something microwavable, show you my nuking prowess, but that didn’t happen.”

“What’s the occasion?” I asked him, feeling touched.

“Eight-month anniversary,” he said, smirking.

“Geez, I’m sorry, I didn’t get you anything. I didn’t know we were celebrating monthiversaries.”

“Don’t worry, you’re sharing with me,” he said, ripping the top of the bag open so a few loose kernels fell to the blanket.

“What are you going to do if we make it to sixteen months? You’ll have to top yourself.”

“Why do you always add the ifs and buts?” he asked, a tinge of irritation in his voice.

“Well, I mean, what if we go to college in different states?” I asked him. It had been nagging at me whenever we were around. A year was a long time, but not that long. I was shocked we’d already been together eight months.

“I’m not committed to anywhere. I think Alex has a good idea, trying to figure out what you actually want to do with the rest of your life before you take a leap.”

“What if you get into Yale or something?”

Henry snickered, bouncing popcorn through his fingers. “I didn’t apply to Yale. I didn’t apply that many places, actually. I’ve got money saved, and I want to go to school, but I’m not sure where yet.”

“Well, still. What if we get separated?”

“Simple,” he said, his face serious as he steadied his hand. “I’ll go wherever you go.”

He smiled at me, the dark pools of his eyes shining. He leaned forward, pulling me into a kiss. The air was warm against my skin and his lips tasted of salt and faintly of chocolate. He ran his hand along my neck, then against my lips he muttered, “What’s this?”

His fingers slid up the silver chain of the necklace. I’d been wearing it beneath my shirt, dormant against my chest.

I felt a stir of energy behind me and before I could turn, Jenna’s hand was on my shoulder.

“What was that?” Henry asked, his brow knit.

I searched his eyes, feeling a shot of unease. Jenna almost never came around when Henry was with me, even at home.

Jenna tapped my shoulder again, this time her hand lingering on me. “Tell him,” she whispered.

Henry jumped back a foot, his hands behind him on the grass but almost falling over. He crab-walked backwards in his haste to get away from me. Most of the blanket scooted with him.

“What’s wrong?” I nearly shouted.

He stayed back from me, not making a move to get closer. “You disappeared!”

“What?”

“You disappeared, like full-on invisible. Only for a second, but I definitely saw it.”

“Oh. That kind of happens when Jenna and I touch.” I tried to be as casual about it as possible to stop him from freaking out.

Henry, still leaning back on his hands, looked around at the fireflies twinkling in the dusky light. “
Oh, that kind of…
Let me get this straight. Your friend’s ghost is hanging out with us right now?”

“Hanging out isn’t exactly the word I would choose,” I said, scowling at Jenna who was standing by. “Barging in is more like it.”

Jenna rolled her eyes. “Yes, I was interrupting your make-out time. Sorry. If you weren’t such a desperate virgin….”

“Definitely not prepared for that,” Henry said, his eyes still wide. He ran his hand through his hair, chest still heaving beneath his t-shirt.

I pulled the necklace out by the chain from beneath my shirt. I had polished and cleaned all the rust off so that it glittered. “Well, I discovered that when I’m wearing this, Jenna and I can touch. And when I touch her, it’s like it pulls me into her world, Limbo.”

I could tell he was trying to keep up, hanging on my every word with his full lips a little slack. I could almost see cartoon birds flying around his head.

“Is he okay there?” Jenna asked, tilting her head and observing his ashen face and his awkward position.

“Uh, I think so. You’re not going to pass out, Henry, are you?”

He blinked and the color seemed to return to his cheeks. He shook his head. “No, not yet. Go on.”

“I want to use this invisibility to spy. Namely on your father’s operations at the office or the meetings.”

“Ariel, that’s really dangerous.” He hopped to his feet. “Which, I’m sure, is exactly why you’re doing it. What if he catches you?”

“He won’t,” I said firmly, still rooted to my spot on the ground.

“How can you be sure? Are you absolutely certain the invisibility works with everyone? That it will last for as long as you need it to?”

“Jenna and I have been testing it out for a few weeks, walking around stores and through town. No one ever sees us,” I explained. “As long as I’m careful and as long as we don’t stay so long that Jenna gets tired, I’ll be fine. I’ll make sure it stays that way.”

“I can’t talk you out of anything, can I?” Henry said with a sigh, running his hand through his hair.

I stood up and wrapped my arms around him, pulling him closer to me. “Nope. Don’t feel bad.
I
can’t even talk myself out of anything.”

“Well, you’re not going to the meetings. I’m not the type to forbid my girlfriend from doing what she wants, but if I was, it would be right there. I’ll do whatever I have to do to stop you from that. Even I’m not able to go to the meetings. They go in there and lower the lights and chant. It’s like they go into this different world.”

A shiver trickled down my spine. “That would have been good to know before.”

“I figured you had some idea because your mom is one of the people that goes. They look bleary eyed afterward, like Rip Van Winkle after his snooze.”

“Winkle Sleep. I wonder if that’s part of the reason why my mom changed so rapidly.”

“It’s a very good possibility. But I can see that gleam in your eye, angel, and it’s not going to happen. If he caught you at a meeting, he would probably have you arrested. At the very least, his reaction would be bad, and like I’ve told you before, I don’t want you in danger.”

“Then what about the ballroom?” I pleaded.

“I don’t know what you can find there, since that’s when they’re doing their boring town activities. But if you’re really sure, it’s probably a good place to start. You can get closer than I can.”

CHAPTER 19

FOLLOWING A WORK
schedule that a still-reluctant Henry provided me, Jenna and I went up to the ballroom headquarters to spy the next day. It was the last week of August and we didn’t have much time left. Once school started, I would be trapped at Hawthorne all day during their main operating hours. I didn’t want to start my final year by sneaking out of class.

I held Jenna’s hand and walked through the washed-out streets. We moved faster than other people, almost like we were running when they were merely walking, although I didn’t have to exert myself. My instincts still told me it was dangerous. A car was heading straight for me; I froze out of fear for a second. The car swished through me; I barely felt anything.