Remembrance (The Mediator #7) by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page A

definitely have put a stop to my unorthodox nursing methods. “You did knock the head off that statue, like everyone says. You’re crazy!”
    “Yeah,” I whispered back. “I am. Be sure to complain to your parents about the crazy woman in the office. That way you’ll have to show them your arm to explain how you got sent here in the first place. Then they’ll know that you’ve been hurting yourself, and maybe get you the help you—”
    “ Get away from her!”
    Becca wasn’t the only one showing some spirit. For the first time the little ghost girl showed some, too, lifting her blond head and taking an interest in what was happening around her.
    And she definitely didn’t like what she saw . . . namely, me.
    Stepping out from behind the shadow of Becca’s chair, she drew her brows together in a pout, and, hugging the stuffed animal she was holding—a threadbare horse—she pointed at me and said in a low, guttural voice, “Stop. You’re hurting Becca.”
    It could have been comical, being bossed around by such a tiny sprite.
    Except that where ghosts are concerned, size doesn’t matter. I’ve had my butt kicked by some NCDPs who seemed completely harmless . . . until their hands were wrapped around my throat.
    Plus, there was nothing comical about the burning hatred in her eyes, or the throaty anger in her voice.
    “I’m not hurting Becca,” I explained to the dead girl in my most reasonable tone. “Becca’s been hurting herself, and I’m trying to help her.”
    Becca, perplexed, glanced in the direction I was speaking, but didn’t see anyone standing there. “Uh . . . Miss Simon? Are you all right?”
    I didn’t have time for Becca’s concern that I’d jumped on the train to Crazy Town.
    “I’m trying to help you, too, kid,” I said to the ghost. “Who are you, anyway?”
    Big mistake. Really, my third biggest mistake of the morning, after calling Paul, then slapping the disinfectant pad on Becca.
    Though in my defense, you really shouldn’t let the undead run around unsupervised, any more than you should let wounds go too long without cleaning them.
    The tiny ghost reacted by reeling backward, so stunned that after however many years she’d been dead someone could finally see her—let alone had communicated with her. She landed with a thump on the cool stone floor . . . a thump that left her looking shocked and humiliated.
    But what followed was no girlish tantrum. She may have seemed cute with her blond bangs, stuffed horse, and riding boots and jodhpurs—apparently she’d been an aspiring equestrian in life—but she was by no means an angel (certainly not yet, as something was keeping her earthbound). She leveled me with a menacing stare.
    “Lucia,” she screamed, with enough force that my hair was lifted back from my face and shoulders and the panes in the windows shook. “And no one hurts Becca!”
    And that’s when the simple mediation I’d been planning went to complete hell.
    The stone tiles beneath my feet began to pitch and buckle . . . which was some feat, because they were stone pavers, each more than two feet wide. They had been laid there three hundred years earlier by true believers at the behest of Father Serra. They’d never shown so much as a crack despite all the earthquakes that had since shaken Northern California.
    And now some little girl ghost venting her wrath at me had the ancient floors splitting, and the three-foot-thick mission walls trembling, and the fluorescent lights overhead swaying, even the glass in the casement windows tinkling.
    “Stop!” I cried, reaching out to grab the arms of the chair in which Becca sat, both to steady myself as well as to shield her from any glass that might start falling. Becca’s eyes were wide with terror. She still couldn’t hear or see Lucia, and so had no idea what was going on.
    I knew, and not only was I as scared as Becca—my heart felt as if it was about to jackhammer out of my chest—I