Diary of a Part Time Ghost (Ghosts & Shadows Book 1) Page 3

  Obviously I was holding a book. Like I said before, I had 20/20 vision. The book was heavy and looked old. The cover was made of thick leather that once upon a time had been light brown but was now scratched, rubbed, faded in sections, and had dark splotches of some liquid over other areas. There were words engraved on the front, but I had to peer closely at them to see the faint etching: The Book of History.

  Was she kidding?

  My enthusiasm rapidly fading, I flipped open the cover, holding onto a hope that it wasn’t really a history book at all but instead a clever packaging for a hand-held gaming device that was tucked into a hole inside the book.

  Yeah, right.

  The pages were made of thin leather that crinkled slightly as I ran my fingers along their edges. The thing smelled dusty and decrepit. I wasn’t squeamish, but even still I held it gingerly, trying to avoid too much contact with it. It could’ve had something contagious within its pages.

  On the first page was a quote printed out in neat calligraphy:

  What you focus on, you become.

  “Is this a history book or a philosophy book?”

  If Bibi noticed my less than enthusiastic response, she didn’t indicate it. Instead, she smiled broadly and exclaimed, “Why, it’s the Book of History! It’s been in our family for a very, very, very long time.”

  I believed it. I was still unimpressed. Of all people, she should’ve known how much I disliked history. It was my absolute least favorite class. “History?”

  Bibi laughed, not dismayed in the least by my lack of appreciation. “I know, I know,” she said, waving her arms dramatically, “it’s not one of those ‘must-have,’ newest, latest, greatest modern gadget toys that I’m sure half your class got for their birthdays.”

  “Ah, no, it’s … uh … interesting.” Trying to muster up manners in the face of disappointment, I continued, “Thanks. Really.”

  She smiled knowingly at me, seemed to hesitate, and then added, “Take care of it, Ashish. It will show you things you need to learn.”

  Whoa. I glanced up quickly and held my breath (I was doing that a lot lately) as I waited for her to tell me more, but she didn’t. Instead she continued brusquely, “This isn’t your standard text book, Ash. History comes alive. Read it.”

  Still unimpressed and unconvinced, I muttered, “Okay. I will. Thanks, Bibi.” Unceremoniously I stuffed it back into the leather sachet it came from.

  “You’re so welcome, my dear,” Bibi replied, seemingly unaware of my intense and not so interesting disappointment. “And let’s just keep this gift between you and me.”

  “Why?” I demanded, suddenly curious again. A secret gift—now that really was interesting!

  Bibi smiled grimly. “Trust me on this. By the way, have you noticed anything unusual lately? Aside from ghosts and shadows and voices, that is?”

  What a question. I noticed unusual every time I looked in the mirror. I frowned. “Apart from you, no. Why?”

  “No, no,” she hastily replied. “It’s just that … something has changed.”

  The hair on my arms tingled at Bibi’s words. That is exactly what I had thought in the dream! Something had changed. “Yeah,” I muttered. “What is it?”

  Bibi glanced at the book. “Whatever it is, most people either don’t see it or pretend they don’t see it and hope it will go away. It won’t.” She looked at me, into me (I hate that), and I squirmed under her sharp gaze. “You need to guard this book, Ash. No one else must have access to it. No one else must know about it. Do you understand?”

  Huh? It was a history book, not the Dead Sea Scrolls! But I nodded my head, and she leaned back in her chair, satisfied. “Then off you go.”

  Obediently, I slouched away, closing the door behind me. When I got to my room, I thrust the gift into my school pack so that it rested beside a few other books that I had no interest in reading. Only then did I realize that we hadn’t really dealt with the reason I had gone to see her in the first place. Instead of getting some usable advice, all I had received was a moldy old history book that was probably out of date anyway. Man, that sucked. I gazed over at my school bag and shook my head again.

  “What a super boring gift,” I complained aloud. I crawled into bed, closed my eyes tightly and hoped my dream ghost and the voices and the shadows would just leave me alone. Hopefully that wasn’t too much to ask.

  Chapter 3

  Whatever Bibi might say, I didn’t see anything coming to life through the study of history. In fact, at the moment I had that thought, I felt like I was going to die of boredom. So you can guess where I was sitting at that moment when I had that thought and felt like I was going to die of boredom. Yup, you guessed it: history class.

  I plopped my elbows on the desk and tried to prop up my head. It’s a trick that sometimes works: it makes you look awake and interested in a class that definitely is not interesting (unless by interesting you mean boring). Well, it didn’t work this time. My head was suddenly feeling very heavy, as if it were filled with rocks instead of brains. Maybe it was.

  I was a pretty a good student. Or rather, I could’ve been, but apparently I lacked focus. At least, according to my report cards, I did. In my defense, I was pretty focused when I liked what I was doing. But generally, that didn’t happen too often.

  History class, however, took that unfocused thing to a whole different level. I didn’t just lack focus; I was liable to fall sleep. And seriously, I really couldn’t afford to do that this time. I had already slept through one class that week, and I didn’t want to face Mr. McNaughten’s wrath. No one wanted to make him angry. Trust me on that. So, to distract myself and keep myself awake and away from the fury of my history teacher, I dragged out Bibi’s Book of History. I reread the quote on the first page: What you focus on, you become.

  Well, I didn’t want to be history. Ha ha. But seriously, this history class was designed to eliminate focus and any other sign of life. Okay, enough about that. At the bottom of the page, someone had scrawled in a dark ink: Watch the shadows. Keep moving. I wished I could keep moving: moving out of this class.

  After flipping through several crispy pages, I felt even less enthusiastic. I stared down at the open page that was filled with a picture. It looked hand-painted, and the colors were bright and fresh-looking. I studied the details of the scene but lost interest. Chin on hands, my eyes blurred and drooping, I started to nod off in the midst of a very monotonous lecture on King Henry the Third or Eighth or something. The one with lots of wives, I think.

  Suddenly my chin slipped off my hands, and I woke up abruptly as my arms thudded onto my desk. One hand landed on the painted picture in the book, and as it did so, everything seemed to lurch forward in a nauseating way. I mean, the room really moved! I thought it was an earthquake. I saw everything around me blur and contort, like when I had put on a pair of my dad’s strong prescription glasses when I was five. It was kind of like that, but without the glasses. Then something like a really thin and shimmering curtain rose up in front of me, separating me from everything else.

  It reminded me of the waves of air that rise off a tarmac road on a very hot day, and from a distance they look almost solid as they twist reality into smoky tendrils. You know what I mean? Just as I reached up to rub my eyes, a vision of another place filled the classroom. It was like a layer of reality superimposed on mine, misty around the edges and faded in color. In that scene I saw a figure.

  At first I thought it was my ghost, somewhere inside the wavy, gauzy curtain, because of the mist and all. It had the same surreal, glowing fuzziness to it, but it wasn’t as dark. But this person looked different. The girl in front of me was about my age. She had light brown, curly hair flopping around a thin, pale face. She stood inside a room that was dimly lit with a few candles and a small fire in a stone hearth. A large cauldron (no witches nearby, though) was suspended above the flames, and wisps of steam floated up from its dark depths. The girl moved toward a wooden table and sat down to eat d
inner with several other people whose faces were unclear. At this point, I kind of wondered if anyone else could see or hear this, but it seemed not. My fellow scholarly students all seemed half asleep. In fact, there was absolutely no movement or sound from the classroom, as if everything was frozen.

  So at this point, I was in a bit of shock and trying to think through it. I had a vague feeling that there was something familiar about the scene. Then, as the girl stood up with her plate in hand, it struck me. I glanced down at the Book of History. The scene in front of me, filling up the classroom, was the same scene as the painting in the book.

  I looked up in amazement—I mean, it really was amazing—and unfortunately that lovely feeling rapidly curdled into dread. As if energized by my fear, one of the shadows cast by the firelight began to stretch up to the ceiling. As I stared in horror, the shadow expanded along the ceiling until the elongated form was looming over the dinner table. Then a dark tentacle began to descend toward the girl.

  That was just too much to handle for one unfocused mind.

  With a gasp, I slammed the book shut. A warm jet of air rushed past me as the curtain vanished abruptly, along with the girl and her family. Classroom movement and noise flowed back in, as if to fill the void left by this sudden departure, and I became acutely aware that everyone was staring at me. This can’t be good. I jerked my head up in time to hear a wave of muted laughter cascade around me. Mr. McNaughten was standing at the front of the class, arms folded, narrow eyes fixed darkly on one unlucky student. And take a wild guess who that unlucky student was. Yup, that would be me.

  “Ah,” I stuttered. A trickle of sweat dribbled down the back of my neck. It really was hot in the room. Was it my imagination or did the teacher’s shadow grow a bit bigger? Oh, please let it be my imagination. A random thought, which didn’t seem like it was mine, rose up from this confusion: maybe focusing on fear wasn’t a good thing to do. I shook my head quickly and the idea returned to wherever it had come from. I needed to focus on the unhappy teacher looming in front of me like a head-on collision. “Yes, sir?”

  “Ashish Chandari,” Mr. McNaughten drawled, somehow managing to make my very Indian name sound very un-Indian. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but something I noticed in my general state of panic and confusion. A shadow leered over the man’s head, reaching out toward me with impossibly long fingers. It wasn’t my imagination. A trick of the light, maybe? Please, let it be …

  “Perhaps you should plan on sleeping more at night rather than making up for lost time during the day, particularly during my class.” My teacher’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “Yes, sir,” I mumbled miserably, but my attention was fixed on the shadow that was somehow floating through the air. No one else seemed to notice it. Just then the bell rang, mercifully cutting through the laughter of my fellow students and ending the humiliation.

  “Good one, Ashish,” Ray, my best friend, commented, grinning as he leaned toward me. “Determined to lower your grade average, eh?”

  “Yeah, whatever,” I muttered, suddenly noticing that my best friend’s shadow was not content to lie flat either. Desperate to get away, I focused on stuffing my things into my bag, hardly daring to handle the Book of History, except to push it hurriedly into its leather pouch. I really had to get out of there. And I needed to finish my conversation with Bibi. I had to know what she gave me. That was the plan.

  So much for my plan. It was pretty much shot down the moment I arrived home.

  “What do you mean, she’s gone?” I demanded, panic rising up as fierce as bile. That was not a nice feeling. I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself, all the while watching the shadows. None of them moved.

  Mom glanced at me while slashing at a helpless vegetable. “She left. As in she packed her bags, walked out the door, and now she’s gone. The dictionary’s in the living room if you need further explanation.”

  “But why? And why now?” Desperation caused my voice to crack slightly. Not cool. I ignored Shanti’s snicker as she walked into the kitchen, grabbed an apple, and sauntered out.

  “She didn’t say, dear, and I didn’t think to ask. She just said it was absolutely essential she leave immediately, for everyone’s sake, but especially yours, whatever that means.” Mom expertly wielded the knife to mince up an onion. “You know how overly dramatic she can be. I’m sure she’ll show up again in a few months, like she always does, with no warning. Now, please go wash up and set the table. Shanti!” Mom shouted, her attention shifting effortlessly to the next child. “I really, truly hope you are writing that history essay!”

  “Yes, Mom,” Shanti called from the living room, over the roar of the TV. “I’m just doing some research on the History Channel.”

  Miserable. That was pretty much how I’d describe myself at that point. I shuffled down the hallway, my bag seeming extra heavy. With Bibi gone, who could I talk to about this? The answer, quite clearly, was no one. There was, I decided, only one thing to do. Never open that book again. Whatever it was, it only seemed to call up weirdness when it was opened, kind of like a pop-up book, except when things popped up, they also tended to move. So the solution was to leave it closed.

  Determined to follow through on my resolution, I marched upstairs, grabbed the leather sachet from my bag, and stood in the middle of my room, gripped with uncertainty.

  “I’ll take it camping with me in a few weeks,” I muttered. I was pacing around my room at this point. “I’ll use it for fire starter. That’s what I’ll do.” I felt a bit guilty over that idea. Somehow, burning an antique book had to be bordering on the blasphemous. “Or maybe I could go to the pawn shop in town. The thing’s old. It must be worth something. Yeah, that’s a better idea,” I stated with more confidence than I felt. I nodded my head and licked my lips. For some reason, I didn’t feel any better.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I muttered. “Just stay out of trouble, and this book is trouble.” So in the mean time, I had to hide it so no one would open it. With frantic energy, I spun about, scanning my room with this purpose in mind.

  A whisper of a strange language floated around me. I really hated those bodiless voices.

  “Be quiet!” I shouted, just as Gita strolled past my doorway.

  “I didn’t make any noise!” she retorted and gave me a scathing look before marching away in a huff.

  I should have felt sorry, but I didn’t. I was too scared to feel anything but fear and panic. I squatted down and peered under my bed. No inspiration was forthcoming. Finally, I stuffed the book under my mattress. Yes, under my mattress. Yes, I know: that was hardly the most original hiding place, but it was the best I could come up with at that moment.

  Sitting down on my bed, I rubbed my hands together. “This Saturday,” I vowed. I glanced nervously at the calendar. It was only Wednesday.

  It was going to be a long week.

  It had to have been a dream. Mr. McNaughten said I had been sleeping again. I had been dreaming some very bizarre, extremely realistic dream, based on the painting I had seen in the book. That’s it. Nothing more.

  I was feeling so tired, despite having apparently slept through most of history class. I decided to rest for a moment, and then go downstairs to help Mom set the table. Just a quick nap …

  Chapter 4

  So much for just a quick nap. I jerked awake suddenly. Someone had woken me, I was sure of it. The room was significantly darker, indicating that my little moment’s rest had extended into a long nap. And yet, I still felt tired. Go figure. With a groan, I sat up, my vision spinning a bit. While I waited for my vision to settle back into its normal place, I glanced around the darkening room. Oops.

  I gazed at the desk, where the Book of History lay in its satchel.

  Frowning, I rubbed my forehead. I had left that book under my mattress, I was sure of it. Even as I thought that, the hair on my arms tingled, and I felt cold. Before I heard the whisper, I felt the presence in the room. That’s pretty creepy, I have to
tell you. I momentarily stopped breathing as I glanced about, looking for the ghost, but there was no evidence of any paranormal activity, apart from snatches of a language whispered on the breeze that fluttered through the curtains.

  My gaze drifted to the book. I wonder … I slowly stood and shuffled hesitantly toward the desk. Licking my lips, I sat in my chair, all the while looking at Bibi’s strange gift. Clenching my fists and then rubbing my fingers together, I waited for a moment, and then another. Only silence greeted me. From far away, so it seemed, the sounds of kitchen ware clattering onto the table rose from below; Mom must have asked one of my sisters to set the table.

  “Well, I might as well see what this is about,” I finally murmured. Let me make it clear: I wasn’t overflowing with enthusiasm at this point, but I had to do something. Laying the leather pouch to one side, I opened the book to the same page that I had seen in history class. In the soft glow of the setting sun, I could see the ornate calligraphy scrolling across one page, while on the opposite page was the little painting.

  I have to admit that my hands were shaking. I stretched out my fingers toward the picture. As they brushed over the surface, everything around me blurred and became fuzzy around the edges, but immediately cleared as I jerked my hand back. Yikes. Gulping hard, I let my hand hover above the picture, and then I pushed it down fully on the page.

  Immediately, I felt a strange sucking sensation on my fingers, as if my hand was over the head of a really strong vacuum cleaner. The world blurred over and a very thin curtain fell in front of me. Slowly, with my hand still on the book, I swiveled the chair around and saw another thin curtain running parallel to the first. They were both thin and gauzy, and shifted gently in a breeze I could not feel. The two curtains were a few paces apart and extended as far as I could see in either direction.

  As I gazed around, I realized that I was completely inside this strange, ghostly space, and I was not alone. A young girl drifted toward me. Her feet floated above the misty surface that had either covered the floor of my room or, more alarming to contemplate, had replaced it. She was pale, but not colorless. Her long hair glowed like mahogany, and her brown eyes were lit up with a smile as she neared me.