Rain of the Ghosts (2 page)

The No Tourist Zone.

Synchronistically, a three-quarter moon slipped into the gap between two rain clouds to illuminate the clearing: a nearly perfect circle, some thirty feet in diameter, on the edge of a sheer cliff overlooking the Atlantic by at least a hundred feet. The rest of the N.T.Z. was surrounded by a virtual wall of wild banana plants and mahogany trees. If you didn’t know where it was, you’d never find the place without a helicopter and a lot of patience.

Rain and Charlie rushed forward like long distance runners who had just broken the tape at the finish line. They sidestepped the large central fire pit and stopped on the long block of sandstone at the cliff’s edge. They smiled at each other. Rain’s almond-shaped, almond-colored eyes sparkled as she said simply, “We made it.” She threw her arms around him and gave him a joyous hug, instantly reminding Charlie why he let her get away with everything he let her get away with.

Partially, it was habit. But he was outgrowing that excuse. Mostly these days, it was this. This little rush that got his heart beating faster every time they got too close. For her, this hug was strictly platonic, like a hundred other platonic hugs they had shared since they were babies. But for him …

How did this happen?! When did this happen?!
he wondered desperately.
Me and Rain? It’s beyond nuts! Thank God she doesn’t know!
And now came the worst part. The fracture in his brain between the side of him that needed the hug to end before she figured out his deep dark secret and the side that really kind of liked holding her and sort of wanted to stay this way forever.

And just then, an unfamiliar voice said, “Hi.”

In unison, Rain and Charlie let out a little frightened yelp. Cheek to cheek, they turned as one—paralyzed in mid-embrace—to see a girl their age take a few cautious steps forward from the east edge of the clearing.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, “but I figured you’d want to know you weren’t alone.”

Immediately, the embarrassed duo disengaged. Charlie took a step back, “Hey, no biggie. We weren’t doing
alone
.”

But Rain was already advancing on the girl. “Hold on. How’d you find this place? It’s a No Tourist Zone.”

The girl took an involuntary step back. “I’m not a tourist,” she said.

Rain looked her up and down. There weren’t many local kids on San Próspero that Rain didn’t know. There weren’t any she hadn’t met. It was just possible this girl was a local from one of the other Ghosts, La Géante maybe or Malas Almas, but she didn’t look the part. She was shorter than Rain with large brown eyes and kewpie doll lips that gave her a bit of a baby-face. Her wavy auburn hair was tied back into a loose pony that made her look even younger. But she was also more developed than Rain, which was a little annoying. She had light skin and the slightest hint of a Euro-Spanish accent hiding somewhere beneath her otherwise standard American English. But the big tip-off was what she was wearing. A sleeveless tee. A short summer skirt. Tennis shoes. Some kind of pendant around her neck. Small gold-hoop earrings. And all of it too chic, too new and too expensive. No one on Malas Almas could afford to dress like that.
Tourist,
Rain thought.

Charlie, meanwhile, had been checking out the stranger too.
She’s cute,
he thought.

“Someone must have taken her up here,” Rain said, loudly enough for the new girl to hear.

Charlie nodded absently, then was struck by a new and horrible thought: “Unless she followed us!”

“Oh, my God!” Rain said, panicked.
The unforgivable sin! We’ll be banished! Excommunicated!

The girl rushed a few steps forward to stem the tide. “I’m not a tourist,” she repeated. “I was born here.” She looked around. “Well, not here in the N.T.Z. But here. On the Prospero Keys.”

Charlie groaned, now positive the girl was lying.

Rain spoke grimly, “Only tourists call these islands the
Prospero
Keys.”

“The
Ghost
Keys. The Ghosts.” The girl sounded a little desperate. Rain could almost see her mentally slapping herself over the error. “I’ve been away at boarding school. I had to call them the Prospero Keys there, or no one knew what I was talking about.”

The girl stood as if waiting to be sentenced. Rain and Charlie exchanged looks. There was a long pause. Finally, Charlie shrugged: “She must be legit. There’s no way a local would reveal the N.T.Z. to a stranger.”

Rain averted her eyes, kicked the ground and mumbled, “What if she
did
follow us?”

“Don’t even go there,” Charlie said flatly.

“I didn’t follow you. Honest.” She took another tentative step. “It took me a while, but I found the place from memory.”

Charlie made a conscious decision to relax. Better to believe her than accept the alternative—and the consequences. He approached her, saying, “I’m Charlie Dauphin. This is Rain Cacique. Welcome home.”

The girl breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Thanks. My name’s Miranda Guerrero.” She and Charlie met beside the dormant fire pit. For a second she thought that maybe he might want to shake hands or something, but he just shoved his fists into the front pockets of his shorts. She didn’t know what to do with her own hands. They seemed to be on the verge of flailing about, so she clasped them together behind her back. She felt like a complete dork. Like a tourist. But he smiled at her, which was nice. She spoke to the smile. “It’s nice to meet someone my age, you know, with school starting Monday—”

Rain groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just…” Miranda trailed off, looking stricken. She glanced nervously toward Rain, afraid that she’d struck another sore spot with the girl. The boy seemed friendly enough. He had cocoa-brown skin and a short black Afro, a wide face, open and kind, with big dark eyes, and an easygoing manner. But the girl. The girl was imposing. As tall as the boy. Copper skin, long black hair and light brown eyes that seemed to look right through you. She seemed very aggressive, and Miranda was sure she had blown it with her.

Oh, just go for it,
she thought.
Nothing to lose now.
“Do you guys want to go waterskiing tomorrow on my dad’s boat?”

Rain and Charlie rolled their eyes dismissively. To Miranda, it almost seemed like a move they had practiced for timing. Charlie shook his head, and Miranda bit her lip and looked away. Then Rain spoke.

CHAPTER THREE

SNAKES

Charlie was still shaking his head. “I can’t believe you said yes.” He and Rain were walking the two bikes into his mom’s gated lockup. There was a sign over their heads: R
OYAL
D
OLPHIN
R
ENTALS
—B
ICYCLES
, M
OPEDS
, C
ANOES
. A gray-blue plywood dolphin with a big grin and a golden crown leapt above the words and the rows and rows of bicycles and tandem bikes and bikes that pulled car seats on wheels and giant tricycles with giant baskets and mopeds and neat stacks of canoes and kayaks and surfboards. There were even three Jet Skis and two Jeeps.

Rain leaned back against the fence as Charlie knelt down to lock the borrowed bikes to their racks. “Why wouldn’t I say yes?” she asked.

“After the way you interrogated her?”

“Waterskiing, Charlie. It was a good offer. Besides, if we weren’t a little shallow, we wouldn’t be teenagers.” On cue, Ramon Hernandez cruised by in a beat-up convertible jam-packed with teens. Metal blared from tinny speakers. Laughter and shouting from about eight mouths. Marina Cortez—a tall dark-haired girl who was sitting up on the chassis with her feet down on the backseat—was the only one to even glance toward Rain, before quickly turning away. Rain didn’t feel snubbed, exactly. It was simply the order of things. She and Charlie were about to start eighth grade. High school seniors were not programmed to give them the time of day. Ramon’s convertible, a tremendous symbol of freedom despite its dragging rear bumper, turned a corner. Rain’s gaze lingered wistfully on its absence. Then she looked around the lockup. “Next time, I think we should rent mopeds.”

Charlie stood up. “Mom’ll love that.”

Rain smiled and shrugged.

Charlie stared at the mopeds. “Of course, we do need to cram in the fun before school starts—”

“And life ends.”

“And life ends.” He led Rain out and locked the gates behind them. The mist, by this time, had descended in force.

Rain spoke, casually doomed, “Three more days. The horror. The horror.”

Charlie looked at Rain. At first her eyes focused on him, smiling. Her eyes always smiled more than her mouth. But gradually they began to lose focus. Or rather, they focused on something he couldn’t see. On something inside her that made her feel sad and small and trapped. When she spoke again, it was barely a whisper: “I better get home.”

“Uh, sure. I’ll see ya.”

She was already walking backward down the street. She waved to him. “Bye.” And turned around, jamming her hands into the pockets of her shorts. He watched her until she turned the corner. Then he walked the half block past the lockup to his house and the chewing out he knew his mom was going to give him for taking the bikes without permission.

By this time, the drums in Rain’s head had quieted, replaced by a sort of slinky piano that kind of gave her the creeps. It was late as she passed from the shoreline neighborhood where the Dauphins lived and into Old Town. Most tourists stayed downtown or by the beach, so Old Town’s “charming” cobblestone streets were not nearly as well lit. It began to drizzle. Rain felt a few drops and then the cold icky of a big drip on her scalp. Pausing beneath a lone wrought-iron streetlamp, she looked up toward the heavens and said, “Terrific.”

She started out again, picking up speed as it began to rain in earnest. Her sneakers barely made a sound on the cobbles, so it startled her when she realized she could hear footsteps. Heavy footsteps. Clomping on the cobblestones. She didn’t stop, but she looked behind her, back down the dark lane. She didn’t see anyone. But the footsteps kept coming, slow and steady. She mentally reprimanded herself. She knew that sound carried forever in the fog on these stone streets. Her father had told her as much on another scary night—
when she was six!
The sound of the footsteps was probably coming from three blocks over or from someone heading in the opposite direction or both. She passed under another solitary streetlamp and felt a bit better.

But if anything, the footsteps were getting louder. Their pace increasing. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw a shadow pass quickly under the lamplight. A big shadow.

Rain didn’t want to run. She was afraid to run. Afraid that acknowledging the danger would make it real. But as she turned down Rue de Lafitte, her own speed increased involuntarily.

The rain was coming down even harder now. Maybe she
could
run. Just to avoid getting soaked. She looked back again. The shadowy figure had turned the corner. The distance between them was decreasing.

She ran. Turned onto Goodfellow Lane, simultaneous with a silent flash of lightning that heralded a real downpour. In response, the heavy boots of the shadowed man started to run as well, clomping and splashing on the wet stones, gaining on her. She beelined for the only streetlamp on the block.

She stopped beneath it, needing the light. He was close now. Just beyond the light, the footsteps slowed and stopped. A rumble of thunder jolted her into action. She wheeled on the shadow and yelled defiantly: “Take another step, and I’ll cut you off at the knees!” Her bravado ebbed pathetically. “Or … I’ll scream. My parents are right inside.”

She still couldn’t see her pursuer clearly. Just a shadow. A very big shadow. Ignoring her warning, it took one deliberate step toward her into the light—which hardly made it any less menacing. The streetlamp revealed a big man, considerably over six feet. He had tanned weathered skin, a spiky blond crewcut and ice blue eyes that accented a permanent scowl. Water dripped down the side of his face. He ignored that too.

She couldn’t move or make a sound. He looked down on her like she was a bug to be squashed under those clomping boots. Finally, he spoke: “Wasn’t following you, kid.” He had an Australian accent.

He nodded his head to the left, toward the three-story building illuminated by the street light. Rain glanced quickly at the sign—T
HE
N
ITAINO
I
NN
—as the man continued, “Got a reservation at the Inn here.”

Rain squeaked out, “You ran after me.”

“Just trying to get out of the rain.” He sneered at her. “Still trying.” Rain just stared at him. He held up a duffel bag as if to prove he had luggage and was therefore on the level.

It worked. Immediately, Rain felt mortified. He was a tourist. “Uh, okay then,” she said. “Right this way.” She quickly ran up the four steps to the front door of the Inn and opened it. He followed.

The lobby of the Nitaino Inn was painted in warm island colors. It was presently deserted, and as she and the man shook the rainwater off, Rain called out, “Mom! We’ve got a guest!”

Almost magically, Rain’s mother appeared on the landing above them and quickly but gracefully descended the stairs. “Rain, I’m right here.” Translation:
Don’t shout!

“Sorry.” Still a bit freaked, Rain put some distance between herself and the stranger. She slid past the front desk and hesitated at the door to the darkened dining room. She forced herself to meet that cold blue gaze. “And sorry about the mix-up.”

“I’ll try to survive the shame.”

Rain’s mom raised an eyebrow in Rain’s direction as she stepped behind the front desk. She opened the register and turned it to face her new guest. “My name’s Iris Cacique. Welcome to the Nitaino Inn, Mister…”

He picked up a pen and glanced down at the book. Currently, there were five other guests listed:

Rebecca Sawyer, Hannibal, MO

Mr. & Mrs. John DeLancy, San Francisco