Rebel Spirits Read Online Free PDF

met the darling Drydens.”
    “Charmers.”
    Charlotte’s hopping on one foot while struggling to get her sock and shoe on the other. I move aside so she can plop down on the bottom step to complete the job.
    “New carpeting, and so foresty green,” she says, looking around. “I’ll be vacuuming up green scraps and fibers for weeks.” Her jeans are creamy-soft, thinned to nearly white in places, and her T-shirt hugs her roundish middle. A monkey grins on the front, with his arm stretched all the way around to her back like a hug.
    “I’ll help vacuum,” I volunteer, eager for something to take my mind off Nathaniel. “Lots of hotel experience.”
    An uneasy look flashes across Charlotte’s face and vanishes just as fast. “That’ll be a change. I’ve done this house by myself for the past four years. Ever since I turned fifteen.” She lifts the hem of her shirt and wipes a smudge off the wallpaper. “This house is putting me through school. I’ll be a sophomore at the college, come fall. What about you?”
    “One more year of high school,” I mutter.
    “Get Mrs. Whitmont for English. The other one, Engles, is hideous. Oh, and make sure you get your locker at the north end of the hall, away from the bathrooms.” Charlotte wrinkles up her nose. “Smells emanate.”
    I like her easy, chattery way.
    “Which room’s yours?” she asks me, standing up.
    “The round one, up top.”
    “You’re living in the tower?” Charlotte looks horrified.
    “There does seem to be something odd about it,” I admit, the memory of last night making me shudder.
    She frowns. “Like what?”
    I don’t know how to answer, so she says, “A spirit?”
    My shock must show on my face. “I — I don’t know,” I stammer. “It sounds ridiculous. You probably don’t believe in ghosts any more than I do.”
    “I believe, actually. Spirits are all around us,” she says matter-of-factly. “I have to block them out. Sometimes humming works, or whistling.” She treats me to a high-pitched version of the Seven Dwarfs’ Heigh-Ho, heigh-Ho, it’s off to work we go. “Listen, I have an idea. It’s my night off from my other job. My boyfriend, Eddie, is busy working so I’m totally free. Why don’t we take one of those ghost tours tonight? We’ll meet at the tour place on Steinwehr, quarter to ten. By the time we’re done, maybe you’ll know whether what you saw in the tower room is a spirit for real or not.” She walks over to the linen closet, reaching in for an armful of sheets. She says over her shoulder, “Some see spirits, some don’t. Maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones.”
    Yes, but is it lucky to see them, or lucky not to? Guess I’ll find out tonight. It’ll be corny and over-the-top for sure. But in the back of my mind I’m hoping I’ll encounter Nathaniel Pierce,since I don’t know any other way to find him. And I think I do want to see him again.
     
    The candlelight ghost tour looks like trick or treat. Murmuring clusters of ghost-walkers are padding around in the dark.
    “Gee, I hope there are enough ghosts to go around,” I joke.
    Charlotte seems jittery. “Don’t worry.”
    Our group is an edgy circle of people, some with cameras to capture the spirits on video. Heather, our guide, counts us and proclaims, “Oh, dear, thirteen, not an auspicious number.” She wears a long hoop-skirted dress to make her look 1860ish. The dress sways over her red checkered Vans, which we’re not supposed to see. Impossibly black, straight wig-hair hangs down her back, trailing to wispy ends. She is careful to remind us that there are no guarantees and no refunds. “Even if you don’t have a single experience on this dark, moonless night of high promise.”
    It sounds silly, but it’s fun, like the séances Jos and I used to do.
    We each get a glow-stick bracelet, so we all look bile-green and ghoulish. We follow Heather’s lantern, in which a single candle melts. The trick is to finish the walk