Graveyard Slot, Michelle Schusterman [top novels to read txt] 📗

“Well?”

“Just wait.”

After a few seconds, he stopped. “Okay, what are you doing? This is . . .” He looked around. “Hang on . . . Are we even going the right way?”

My hands were sweating and my heart was hammering away, but I couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah. Look.” I flipped the camera off. My pulse slowed immediately, and I saw Oscar’s shoulders relax. “It makes us feel anxious. And lost.”

Oscar frowned. “So it’s still possessed?”

“Think about that feeling,” I said. “It’s how we all felt at the waterfall. Nervous, panicky, lost. Like the hikers, right? Because it’s a residual haunting. All their emotions were trapped there.”

“Right . . .”

“Trapped in the rocks, in the trees, in the water.”

I lifted my camera strap, letting the Elapse dangle like a hypnotist’s necklace. Oscar’s mouth fell open.

“You dropped it into the water, and—”

“It soaked up the residual emotions,” I finished. “That’s what I think.”

“Wow.” We reached the park exit and picked up our pace as the church entrance came into view. “So you can’t use your camera anymore without having a panic attack? That kind of sucks.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. But something else had just occurred to me. According to what Jamie and I had read, I shouldn’t have been able to exorcise the ghost without knowing her identity. But according to her message on the tree, she “got out.”

That sliver of an idea was back, so thin and fragile, I couldn’t quite grasp it fully. “Did you understand what Roland was saying about Brunilda?” I asked Oscar.

“Just that Guzmán made her up, but he wasn’t faking the other stuff, like with the table. I don’t really get it.”

“Me either,” I said. “Let’s find out.”

The crew had moved from the catacombs into the church, equipment spread out between the altar and the first row of pews. The mood had changed entirely since I’d left; now it was all smiles and excited chatter. Even Inés and Guzmán’s other students looked thrilled as they watched Dad interview their professor.

Oscar and I snuck up to the front, keeping behind the columns. It didn’t look like anyone had noticed we were missing yet. Well, none of the adults. Jamie kept glancing around, and he spotted us almost right away. He nudged Hailey, whose face lit up when she saw us. They left Abril and Thiago, who were watching as Inés joined the interview, and hurried over.

“Where’d you guys go?” Jamie whispered.

“The willow tree,” I said, and quickly explained about the girl who’d appeared in the catacombs. “But it’s not Ana,” I added. “I don’t know who she is.”

Hailey’s eyes were shining. “It’s Brunilda, I bet,” she said. “It totally makes sense now.”

“What? No, she—”

“No, listen,” Hailey went on. “That was the whole point of Guzmán’s experiment. He said he wanted to prove that—what did he say exactly?”

“That paranormal activity is a manifestation of the mind, which makes it real,” Jamie said. “He needed his students to believe Brunilda existed for it to work. They did, and because they believed in her, they got actual results. The stuff that happened during his séances, like the table floating and all that, he wasn’t faking any of it!”

“So they did conjure Brunilda down there,” Hailey finished. “And she led you to the willow tree! Ah, I wish someone had gone with you to film it. Are you going to tell Jess about the message? She’ll probably want to get—”

“No,” I interrupted. “No . . . it can’t be Brunilda. I saw this ghost at the waterfall, before we even got here.”

Hailey asked. “Are you sure it’s the same one?”

“Yes. It’s not Brunilda.” Ignoring the glance Jamie and Oscar exchanged, I looked around the church until I spotted Roland. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

I hurried off without waiting for a response. Roland was sitting in the third row, flipping through Brunilda’s journal. I slid into the pew behind him and tapped his shoulder.

“How can Brunilda be a made-up person but a real ghost?” I had to struggle to keep my voice down. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Roland looked at me curiously. “Have you been crying? Your eyes are all red.”

“What? No.” Instinctively, I wiped my eyes even though they were dry. “Look, that ghost at the waterfall I told you about, the one I thought was Ana Arias? She’s . . . it’s not Ana, but I’m still seeing her. And you said that was my brain tricking me.” I felt slightly panicky, so I glanced down to make sure my camera was still off. “Is that what this Brunilda thing is? She didn’t exist, but Guzmán tricked us into believing she’s real, and suddenly somehow she is? I don’t get it.”

Setting the journal down, Roland grabbed his backpack and started rummaging inside. “I think I can explain it,” he said. “So the town I grew up in had one library. Really small, really old. When I was five, my brother told me it was haunted. Aha, here they are.” He pulled out a wad of napkins and handed them to me. “They’re clean, I swear.”

“Thanks.” I took one and blew my nose.

“My brother said that the library was haunted by its very first librarian,” Roland continued. “She was killed when someone knocked over a shelf, which knocked over another shelf—domino effect kind of thing—and, anyway, she was crushed to death. Her name was Ellie.”

I started to say something, then thought better of it. Roland had gotten so close-lipped when Sam mentioned Ellie back at the waterfall, and I wanted to hear the rest of the story.

“My brother told me her ghost was spotted every year at midnight on the anniversary of her death,” he went on. “He had all kinds of other stories about her, too. Like how people sometimes felt cold standing near the shelf that crushed her, or felt her breath on their necks if they shelved a book in the wrong place. I was pretty obsessed with the whole idea, and I spent a ton of time at the library hoping to have some sort of sighting. But I