The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney (2 page)

“Those choices sound very agreeable for some other person,” Prajeet chimed in. “But as far as you are concerned, they are mere piffle and poppycock.”

“Piffle and poppycock?” I said, betrayed. “Prajeet! I thought you were my friend!”

Then I smelled a sugary fragrance and saw the air in front of the window shiver. Floyd's outline wavered a bit, as if he were uncertain of his welcome.

“Come on in, Floyd,” I said with weary resignation.

“The party's just getting started.”

He firmed up and smiled at me. “Thanks, honey.”

“At least I know
you're
on my side,” I said, with an accusing glance at Prajeet and Professor Trimble.

“Of course I am!” He turned to the others. “Sparrow is still young. She has a right to be a little confused at this stage in life.”

“Thank you,” I said with dignity. Finally, someone who understood how I felt, who could see my side of things, who wasn't always telling me what to do—

“Although,” he said comfortably, “I do think you should consider going to the last message service of the season.”

I gave him my best you-must-be-kidding look. He gave me his best I'm-just-making-an-innocent-suggestion look in return.

Go to a message service? Was he
insane
? It was bad enough to sit in a crowded auditorium for an hour while one medium after another passed on spirit messages to people in the audience. What was even worse was the idea of skulking in a corner, trying to escape the attention of all the ghosts who would also be there. I shuddered.

“Message services,” I said. “Ick.”

“Ah, well.” Floyd looked downcast. “It was just an idea.”

I felt a little tug of guilt. I hated disappointing Floyd.

Now Professor Trimble was shaking her head sorrowfully. “You have so much potential. So much untapped talent.”

“It is not right that you toss it to the dogs,” Prajeet agreed.

“I'm not tossing anything to the dogs, and what does that even mean?” I threw my pillow at him.

He didn't bother to duck. It flew right through him and hit my oak dresser. His image trembled a bit, but his serene expression didn't change.

“It means throwing away something valuable, tossing it aside as if it were garbage—”

“Okay, okay, I know what it means.”

“We are just trying to offer you a little guidance, that is all,” he added. “Do not be angry.”

“I'm not,” I muttered. “But do you even remember what it's like to be a teenager? I'm going to be in high school! I don't want people to think I'm a freak!”

Professor Trimble raised one eyebrow. “And why should anyone think that?”

“People think Emily Lawson is a freak just because she plays the oboe,” I replied. “If they knew I talked to dead people—”

“Not the same thing at all,” Professor Trimble said. “The oboe is a horrid instrument.”

“That's not the point—oh, never mind.” I sighed. “I just—I don't want any more guidance, all right? I want to make my own decisions about my life.”

There was a brief, fraught pause. Then, to my surprise, Professor Trimble actually conceded the point.

“And so you should. An excellent idea.” Her tone was brisk. “It really should have nothing to do with us, should it, Prajeet?”

She caught Prajeet's eye, and he quickly shook his head. “No, nothing to do with us,” he said. “Nothing at all.” Then he paused to listen. “Ah, I think your guests are leaving.”

Sure enough, I could hear the murmur of thank yous and good nights as the visitors drifted out of the house. A few moments later I heard my sisters arguing about whose turn it was to clean up the parlor and then mutually agreeing (as always) that it could wait until morning.

“Good,” I said. “Now I can finally get some sleep.” Professor Trimble added, “Yes, my dear, you do that.” She began to flicker. “And thank you for your honesty, Sparrow. You have given me much to think about.”

“Sweet dreams, cupcake.” Floyd winked.

They all vanished.

And I was left, of course, staring at the ceiling, wide awake until dawn.

Chapter 3

If
you took a wrong turn off the highway and drove through Lily Dale by accident, you'd see what looks like a normal, if slightly dilapidated, small town. Most of the houses are Victorians—not reproductions but houses that were actually built when Queen Victoria sat dumpily on her throne. Very few have been painted or repaired since. Every house leans a little to one side or the other (ours tilts north-northwest), most porches sag in the middle, and a fair number of windows are either cracked or boarded up with plywood.

(Well, as Grandma Bee always says, a spiritual life is not a lucrative life. That's why we buy our clothes in thrift shops, or at least my sisters do. They complain bitterly about this, but I point out that there's something worse than wearing thrift store clothes, and that's wearing thrift store
hand-me-downs
.)

If you actually stopped here after taking that wrong turn, you'd find out that my hometown is not normal at all. That's because Lily Dale was founded in 1879 as a Spiritualist community, a place where mediums could live and work. Here talking to the dead is as normal as pumpkin pie, although we don't actually say that people have died. We say they've Passed On or Crossed Over or Gone to Summerland, which sounds much less scary and morbid and, well,
final
.

My great-great-grandmother moved here in 1912 to hang out her shingle as a medium, and Delaneys have been serving Spirit in Lily Dale ever since. Grandma Bee, my mother, and Oriole all have passed the test to become registered mediums, which means that they are allowed to give public readings. But everyone in the family has some psychic talent. Raven is quite skilled at picking up messages that warn of doom and disaster; coupled with her long black hair, sharp black eyes, and sardonic expression, this has kept her from attracting many customers. Oriole is attuned to communications dealing with love, romance, and hair-styling tips (she's very popular). Dove specializes in weepy messages of reconciliation. Wren usually gets information about unfinished housekeeping details (the will that was hidden a little too carefully, the stock certificates that were lost in the attic). Lark sees auras, and Linnet creates spirit drawings, done with pastels.

And we're pretty run-of-the-mill compared with our neighbors. Mrs. Winkle, who lives next door, believes that fairies live in her garden. Who's to say, she might be right. Her backyard is a wild, overgrown quarter acre of wildflowers and weeds. A troupe of circus clowns could be living there, and no one would ever know.

Three streets over, Mr. Sanderson channels a spiritual sidekick named Ojai Cinnabar. He gets a lot of business, even though he usually just tells people to eat more vegetables and to exercise every day. They often report back that they feel amazingly better and have lost several inches off their waistlines.

Mrs. O'Malley sits on her back porch every evening and watches long-dead Iroquois Indians walk by single file, tomahawks in hand. They never speak to her, but she claims that their “energy vibrations” give her warrior strength. She's sixty-five years old and runs a marathon twice a year. I have to admit that imparts a certain authority to this claim.

Miss Robertson lives with nine cats, five dogs, three gerbils, and a rabbit. She specializes in contacting the spirits of dead pets. Even in the afterlife, she reports, cats are standoffish, dogs are devoted, and gerbils speak nothing but nonsense. She refuses to channel rabbits because, she says, “they have only one thing on their minds, and I prefer to focus on more
elevated
topics.”

Truthfully, I would love to live in a boring suburb where kids play soccer, dads grill hamburgers on the weekend, and moms divide their time between high-powered corporate jobs and PTA meetings. Still, I must admit that there are some good things about growing up in Lily Dale. You learn to be open to the mysterious and the unexplained. You learn not to judge people as nuts until you've known them for years. Then, even if you decide they
are
nuts, you realize that you already like them, so that's okay.

But even if Lily Dale had its good points, I knew that I didn't want the life that my family had planned for me here. Their dream was that I would discover my psychic ability, join the family business, and settle down to many years of buying clothes at thrift stores, worrying about the electric bill, and having everyone in the outside world think that I was seriously weird.

That was most emphatically
not
the future I wanted.

I wanted a world that was bigger than Lily Dale and a life that was absolutely ordinary in every way. And I was determined to have both.

I woke up late on my birthday and wandered down to the kitchen, yawning, at noon. My mother is normally far too distracted to cook (or at least to cook without setting the dish towels on fire). However, for each of our birthdays, she rises early, concentrates fiercely, and produces our favorite breakfasts without incident. As I walked into the kitchen, still blinking the sleep from my eyes, she greeted me with a floury kiss on the cheek and a smile that made her deep brown eyes crinkle warmly.

“Happy birthday, Sparrow,” she said happily. “What a wonderful morning! I feel quite certain that today is going to be a
most
auspicious day!”

“Thanks, Mom.” I smiled and sat down to a plate of blueberry pancakes. Every year my mother tells each of us, her voice trembling with thrilling conviction, that she can sense that our birthday is a “most auspicious” day. We tease her about it, but we all would be very upset if she ever forgot to say it. It's the only day that I can count on feeling that my life is going to be completely fabulous in every way.

After breakfast I walked to the lake and spent the afternoon swimming and lying in the shade, reading. That evening we gathered to eat my favorite dinner (pot roast and potato pancakes). For the finale, Wren proudly carried my birthday cake into the dining room and set it down on the table with a flourish.

“Ta-da!” she said as triumphantly as if she had traversed the Antarctic to deliver it.

Actually, crossing a polar landscape might have presented less of a challenge; at least there wouldn't be as much to trip over. Tonight, for example, Wren had to dodge Mordred, our one-eyed malevolent tabby cat, who kept weaving between her feet in a deliberate attempt to trip her. She had to step over a pile of laundry that someone (I suspect Lark) had left on the floor. And she had to squeeze by the battered old piano, grandfather clock, and three end tables that had been pushed against the wall to make room for last night's reading.

I saw a faint flicker out of the corner of my eye, caught a whiff of nutmeg, and knew that Floyd had joined us. I glanced casually to my right. He gave me a little wave as my family, oblivious to his presence, chatted on.

Well, I guess there is some truth to that old saying about the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. At least, I'm the only person in my family who can see ghosts anywhere, at any time. My mother and Grandma Bee can also see spirits, but it usually requires great concentration and focus. None of my sisters has ever seen a manifestation (a source of much sorrow for Oriole, Dove, and Wren and a matter of true indifference for Lark and Linnet, while Raven claims bitterly and unconvincingly not to care a bit).

This means of course that I constantly have to remember not to react to random ghosts walking down the street or floating up the stairs. For years I've been practicing my poker face, ignoring whispered pleas in my ear, and learning to look past pushy ghosts with a blank and uncomprehending stare.

Sometimes I have slipped up, especially in the beginning, but there are distinct advantages to being the youngest in a large and disorganized family. People often don't notice that you're acting strangely because they simply don't notice you at all. Even if your behavior does attract attention, well, before you've finished explaining just
why
you were talking to the wallpaper, there's bound to be another, much more urgent crisis that conveniently takes the spotlight off you.

Now, I cautiously crinkled my nose at Floyd in greeting. He examined the cake with professional interest, then heaved a disappointed sigh.

The cake was lopsided and listed to one side, as if its grip on the plate were so precarious that it might slip off at any moment. It had been decorated in a slapdash manner with bright pink icing on the top and white icing on the sides. Candy sprinkles had been scattered randomly, so that they collected in multicolored clumps in some areas and were as sparse as diamonds in others.
Happy Birthday Spa
was spelled out in icing with so many flourishes and curlicues that it was clear that the person writing the greeting (I suspected Oriole, who has a decided preference for style over substance) had run out of room before finishing my name.

“Too much baking powder,” he said. “And the cake didn't cool enough before they took it out of the pan. Plus it looks as if someone ran out of frosting there at the end.” He shook his head sadly. “Why don't people ever want to hire a professional?”

“It's going to be eaten in fifteen minutes,” I said without thinking (this is what happens when I let my guard down for one split second). “Who cares what it looks like?”

Wren looked both hurt and uncertain. “I followed the recipe exactly,” she said. “Down to the last teaspoon. I don't know what happened!”

“No, no, it's lovely!” I said quickly, shooting a venomous look at Floyd. He retreated to the far corner of the room, abashed.

“It was supposed to look like a launchpad, with a little toy rocket ship on top,” Wren went on mournfully. “You know, kind of a metaphor for launching yourself into another year of life and going to a new school and everything? But Lark broke the rocket—”

“That thing was ancient; it was about to fall apart anyway,” Lark grumbled under her breath.

“—and then the middle of the cake fell in—”

“Yeah, it looks more like a bomb crater than a launching pad,” Raven put in, her black eyes glittering with malice. “Hope that's not a bad omen!”

“—and now the entire concept is ruined!” Wren finished with a wail.

“That's okay,” I said soothingly. “I'm sure it will be quite tasty. In a metaphor-free kind of way.”

“Time to light the candles and make a wish!” my mother trilled. The cake, I now noticed, had only eight mismatched candles.

As if she could read my mind, Raven said, “Sorry we didn't have fifteen candles.” As usual, she didn't sound sorry at all. “That's all we could find in the junk drawer.”

My mother put a hand in her pocket. A worried look crossed her face. “I could have sworn . . .” she murmured, checking another pocket. “Now, where did I put those matches?”

“You just had them!” Raven said, irritated. “I saw you pick them up off the kitchen counter!”

“You're right!” my mother said happily, seizing on this with relief. “I picked them up with this hand—” she stared at her right hand, her brow furrowed with thought—“and then I did . . . what?” She kept looking at her hand, as if it would offer another clue.

The hand stayed stubbornly empty and clueless.

“I'm sure they'll show up,” Oriole said in a faraway voice. She was sitting at the end of the table, wearing an outfit pulled together from the cobwebby recesses of our basement: a tattered antique wedding dress, fake pearls, worn opera gloves, and an ancient pair of button-up boots. She should have looked like a mentally unstable refugee from a music video. Instead she looked like a gorgeous (albeit eccentric) fashion model.

“Dr. Snell probably got at them again,” Grandma Bee said as she sneaked a finger in the icing. She popped it in her mouth and added fondly, “He's such a rascal.”

Complete silence greeted this remark. Grandma Bee has been nurturing a crush on Dr. Snell for decades. He was apparently a respected member of the medical community when he was alive, but now that he's Crossed Over, he's become a poltergeist, one of those annoying ghosts that get a kick out of playing pranks throughout eternity. He's always dumping flour on the floor or ringing the doorbell at three in the morning or hiding certain items (like matches) just when they're most needed.

I used to think it strange that ghosts could move objects so easily. You'd think that not having a body would pose a problem. But Prajeet explained that it just requires a bit of mental effort, although most ghosts don't care to take the trouble. Unfortunately, Dr. Snell is
very
motivated in this regard.

The last time he dropped by, for example, he found a box in the attic that contained a scattering of dried-up flies, roaches, and silverfish. He proceeded to dump them on the heads of the visitors at that night's reading. Grandma Bee tried to pass this off as his way of telling people that there is Another World That They Know Not Of, but even she had to admit that business dropped off sharply for months afterward. Dr. Snell is beyond annoying, but if any of us complain, Grandma Bee just gets a moony look in her eyes and says something like “If you girls could only see the man! Handsome doesn't begin to describe him!”

Now she called out sweetly, “Oh, Dr. Snell! Are you here, dear?”

“Don't encourage him,” Raven muttered.

We all glanced nervously around the room. I've only seen him a few times—he's a natural-born lurker—but I knew I'd recognize him. He looks like a human cockroach, with his shiny brown suit, beady bright eyes, slicked-back hair, and nasty smile. I surreptitiously sniffed the air—he always brings a whiff of stink bomb with him—but smelled only pot roast and, through the open window, the faint scent of fresh-cut grass.

“We'd love a visit if you feel like manifesting,” Grandma Bee cooed.

My mother looked worried at this. “Mmm, well, perhaps he doesn't want to intrude,” she murmured tactfully. “A family gathering, you know . . .”