Giving Up the Ghost by Phoebe Rivers Page A

could see the clock over the entry door, and it read 1:20 a.m. I stood nearby, looking down at them, but neither seemed to know that I was there. And yet I could smell the faint scent of patchouli, hear the knocking of the old radiators, feel the chilly draft that escaped from beneath the heavy drapes at the window. Outside, icy snow pattered against the window.
    Several large, green crystals lay between them. Moldavite crystals. Like the one Lady Azura had given to me.
    The spirit was trembling. She looked as though she might cry. The air in the room felt dark. Heavy. I found it hard to breathe. I felt an overwhelming sense of gloom and desolation. Hopelessness.
    â€œYou must let go. You must forgive them. Tell them how you feel. Show them. Release the energy, Nina. Release it, please.”
    â€œI cannot,” she gasped. “It’s too late.”
    â€œYou can. You must. Together we must try.”
    The spirit was quiet for maybe a full minute, although it was hard to know how much time was passing. Then all at once she gave a shriek. I jumped. Lady Azura’s eyes flew open.
    I watched as a dark cloud whooshed out of the spirit’s body. It startled me so much that I gasped and jumped backward. It formed a smoky, roiling cloud, dark as a smoke cloud, but somehow even thicker.
    Just like the cloud I’d seen in my room.
    It occurred to me that the cloud seemed to be propelled by anger. Agitation. It whipped furiously around the room. The spirit and I followed its path, this way and that. Lady Azura sat calmly, staring at the spirit. I was certain she couldn’t see the cloud. Didn’t know it was there.
    Then the cloud slammed into a mirror on the wall, cracking it so that long, branchlike strands grew across it, like the surface of thin ice on a pond. But it didn’t make a sound. Lady Azura did not seem to notice this, either, although the spirit and I both saw it. So that’s what happened to the mirror, I thought, remembering how the mirror had just disappeared from Lady Azura’s wall one day last month, and she’d refused to tell me anything other than that it had broken.
    I saw the cloud swirl and shift, and then it seemed to get sucked out of the room, under the closed door. Out into the house. Just as it had in my bedroom after my dream.
    The vision ended.
    â€œSara? Are you all right?”
    I blinked. Stared at her. I had beads of sweat on my forehead and on my upper lip. I was breathing heavily. The vision had been so . . . vivid.
    Lady Azura was giving me one of her laser stares. Her eyes bore into me.
    â€œSara. You must tell me what happened.”
    Now I was officially freaked out. I’d dreamed about this woman twice. Then I’d seen her in a vision. Lady Azura clearly knew her. Suddenly I felt angry. She knew more than she was telling me. All this talk of “bad energy.” I had seen with my own eyes that the bad energy had been released into our house by this spirit. It hadn’t just spontaneously shown up. There was more to the story. It didn’t seem right that she was holding back information from me.
    I decided to just come right out with it.
    â€œWho is Nina Oliver?”
    Lady Azura went pale.

Chapter 9
    When someone who wears that much makeup loses all the color from her face, you know you’re onto something.
    Then she recovered. She folded her hands and leaned toward me, speaking in a calm, clear voice. “Sara. It is very important that you tell me what just happened to you. Did you have a vision?”
    I met her eyes. I could be just as strong. I would tell her, but first she had to tell me what she knew.
    â€œI think you’re keeping something from me,” I said. “I’m not a kid. Well, I mean, I am, but I’m also old enough to handle this. You have to please tell me who Nina Oliver is. Because I have seen her three times.”
    She sat back. She looked surprised. I guess I’d never really