"He isn't going to try to exorcize you again, Jesse," I said hastily. "He knows he'd never get away with it, not while I'm around - "

"I don't care about that," Jesse said scornfully. "It's you he left for dead, remember? And this person is going to your school now? What does Father Dominic have to say about this?"

I took a deep breath. "Father Dominic thinks we should give him another chance. He - "

But Jesse didn't let me finish. He was up and off my bed, pacing the room and muttering under his breath in Spanish. I had no idea what he was saying, but it did not sound pleasant.

"Look, Jesse," I said. "This is exactly why I didn't tell you. I knew you were going to fly off the handle like this - "

"Fly off the handle?" Jesse threw me an incredulous look. "Susannah, he tried to kill you!"

I shook my head. It took a lot of guts, but I did it anyway.

"He says he didn't, Jesse," I said. "He says . . . Paul says I would have found my way out of there on my own. He says something about there being these people called shifters, and that I'm one of them. He says they're different from mediators, that instead of just being able to, you know, see and speak to the dead, shifters can move freely through the realm of the dead, as well. ..."

But Jesse, instead of being impressed with this bit of news, only looked more angry.

"It sounds as if you and he have been doing a lot of talking lately," he said.

If I hadn't known better, I might have thought Jesse sounded almost. . . well, jealous. But since I knew good and well - as he had made it only too clear - that he did not feel about me the way that I feel about him, I simply shrugged.

"What am I supposed to do, Jesse? I mean, he goes to my school now. I can't just ignore him." I didn't, of course, have to go over to his house and French-kiss him, either. But that was one thing I was keeping from Jesse at all costs. "Besides, he seems to know stuff. Mediator stuff. Stuff Father Dominic doesn't know, maybe hasn't ever even dreamed of. ..."

"Oh, and I'm certain Slater is only too happy to share all he knows with you," Jesse said very sarcastically.

"Well, of course he is, Jesse," I said. "I mean, after all, we both have this sort of unusual gift...."

"And he was always so eager to share information about that gift with the other mediators of his acquaintance," Jesse said.

I swallowed. Jesse had me there. Why was Paul so keen on mentoring me? Judging by the way he'd jumped me in his bedroom, I had a pretty good idea. Still, it was .hard to believe his motives could be entirely lascivious. There were way prettier girls than me who went to the Mission Academy whom he could have had with a lot less trouble.

But none of them, I knew, shared our unique ability.

"Look," I said. "You're overreacting. Paul's a jerk, it's true, and I wouldn't trust him farther than I could throw him. But I really don't think he's out to get me. Or you."

Jesse laughed, but not like he really found anything amusing in the situation. "Oh, it's not me I think he's out to get, querida. I am not the one he's sending roses to."

I glanced at the roses. "Well," I said, feeling myself blush. "Yes. I can see your point. But I think he only sent those because he really does feel bad about what he did." I didn't mention Paul's most recent transgression against me, of course. I let Jesse think I meant the stuff Paul had pulled over the summer.

"I mean, he doesn't have anyone," I went on. "He really doesn't." I thought of the big glass house Paul lived in, of the spare and uncomfortable furniture in it. "I think . . . Jesse, I honestly think part of Paul's problem is that he's really, really lonely. And he doesn't know what to do about it, because no one ever taught him, you know, how to act like a decent human being."

Jesse wasn't having any of that, though. I could feel sorry for Paul all I wanted - and a part of me truly did, and I don't even mean the part that considered Paul a really excellent kisser - but to Jesse the guy was, is, and always would be dog meat.

"Well, for someone who doesn't know how to act like a decent human being," he said, going over to the roses and flicking one of the fat, scarlet buds, "he is certainly doing a good imitation of how one might behave. One who happens to be in love."

I felt myself turning as red as the roses Jesse was standing beside.

"Paul is not in love with me," I said. "Believe me." Because guys who were in love with girls did not send minions to try to keep them from fleeing the premises. Did they? "And even if he were, he sure isn't now. . . ."

"Oh, really?" Jesse nodded at the card in my hand. "I think his use of the word love - not sincerely or cordially or truly yours - would indicate otherwise, would it not? And what do you mean, if he were, he isn't now?" His dark-eyed gaze grew even more intense. "Susannah, did something . . . happen between the two of you? Something you aren't telling me?"

Damn! I looked down at my lap, letting some of my hair hide my face, so he couldn't see how deeply I was blushing.

"No," I said to the bedspread. "Of course not."

"Susannah."

When I looked up again, he was no longer standing by the roses. Instead, he was standing by the side of my bed. And he had lifted one of my hands in his own and was looking down at me with that dark, impenetrable gaze of his.

"Susannah," he said again. Now his voice was no longer murderous. Instead, it was gentle, gentle as his touch. "Listen to me. I'm not angry. Not with you. If there's something . . . anything . . . you want to tell me, you can."

I shook my head, hard enough to cause my hair to whip my cheeks. "No," I said. "I told you. Nothing happened. Nothing at all."

But still Jesse didn't release my hand. Instead, he stroked the back of it with one calloused thumb.

I caught my breath. Was this it? I wondered. Was it possible that after all these weeks of avoiding me, Jesse was finally - finally - going to confess his true feelings for me?

But what, I thought, my heart drumming wildly, if they weren't the feelings I hoped? What if he didn't love me after all? What if that kiss had just been ... I don't know. An experiment or something? A test I'd failed? What if Jesse had decided he just wanted to be friends?

I would die, that's all. Just lie down and die.

No, I told myself. No one clutched someone else's hand the way Jesse was clutching mine and told her that he didn't love her. No way. It wasn't possible. Jesse loved me. He had to. Only something - or someone - was keeping him from admitting it. ...

I tried to encourage him into making the confession I so longed to hear.

"You know, Jesse," I said, not daring to look him in the eye but keeping my gaze on the fingers holding mine. "If there's anything you want to tell me, you can. I mean, feel free."

I swear he was about to say something. I swear it. I finally managed to lift my gaze to his, and I swear that when our eyes met, something passed between us. I don't know what, but something. Jesse's lips parted, and he was about to say who knows what, when the door to my room burst open. CeeCee, followed by Adam, came in, looking angry and carrying a whole lot of poster board.

"All right, Simon," CeeCee snarled. "Enough slacking. We need to get down to business, and we need to get down to business now. Kelly and Paul are whupping our butts. We have got to come up with a campaign slogan, and we have to come up with it now. We have one day until the election."

I blinked at CeeCee as astonishedly as Jesse was doing. He had dropped my hand as if it were on fire.

"Well, hi, CeeCee," I said. "Hi, Adam. Nice of you two to drop by. Ever heard of knocking?"

"Oh, please," CeeCee said. "Why? Because we might interrupt you and your precious Jesse?"

Jesse, upon hearing this, raised his eyebrows. Way up.

Blushing furiously - I mean, I didn't want him to know I'd been talking about him to my friends - I said, "CeeCee, shut up."

But CeeCee, who had dropped the poster board on the floor and was now scattering Magic Markers everywhere, went, "We knew he wasn't here. There's no car in the driveway. Besides, Brad said to go on up."

Of course he had.

Adam, spying the roses, whistled. "Those from him?" he wanted to know. "Jesse, I mean? Guy's got class, whoever he is."

I have no idea how Jesse reacted upon hearing this, since I didn't dare glance in his direction.

"Yes," I said, just to skip the complicated explanations. "Listen, you guys, this really isn't a very good - "

"Ew!" CeeCee, on the floor by the poster board, was finally in a position to get a good look at my feet for the first time. "That is disgusting! Your feet look just like the feet of those people they pulled down off Mount Everest. . . ."

"That was frostbite," Adam said, bending to scrutinize my soles. "Their feet were black. Suze's got the opposite problem, I think. Those are burn blisters."

"Yeah, they are," I agreed. "And they really hurt. So if you don't mind - "

"Oh, no," CeeCee said. "You are not getting rid of us that easily, Simon. We need to come up with a campaign slogan. If I'm going to abuse my photocopying privileges in my capacity as editor of the school paper by running off hand flyers - don't worry, I already got a bunch of my sisters fifth grade classmates to agree to pass them out for us at lunch - I want to make sure they at least say something good. So. What should they say?"

I sat there like a lump, my mind completely filled with one thing and one thing only: Jesse.

"I'm telling you," Adam said, uncapping a Sharpie and taking a deep, long sniff of its tip. "Our slogan should be Vote Suze: She Doesn't Suck."

"Kelly," CeeCee said with some disdain, "would have a field day with that one. We'd be slapped with a defamation of character suit in no time for implying that Kelly sucks. Her dad's a lawyer you know."

Adam, done sniffing the Sharpie, said, "How about Suze Rules?"

"That doesn't exactly rhyme," CeeCee pointed out. "Besides, then the implication is that the student government is a monarchy, which of course it is not."

I risked a glance at Jesse, just to see how he was taking all of this. He did not appear, however, to be paying much attention. He was staring at Paul's roses.

God, I thought. When I got back to school, I was so going to kill that guy.

"How about," I said, hoping to hurry CeeCee and Adam along so that I could have some privacy with my would-be boyfriend again, "Simon says vote for Suze."

CeeCee, kneeling beside the poster board, cocked her head at me, the sun, slanting into my west-facing windows, making her white-blond hair look bright yellow.

"'Simon says vote for Suze/" she repeated slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Good one, Simon."

And then she bent down to start writing the slogan on the pieces of poster board scattered across my floor. It was clear that neither she nor Adam were going to be leaving anytime soon.

I glanced in Jesse's direction again, hoping to signal to him, as subtly as I could, how sorry I was for the interruption.

But Jesse, I saw, much to my dismay, had disappeared.

Wasn't that just like a guy? I mean, you finally get him to a point where he's apparently ready to make the big confession - whatever it was going to be - and then, bam. He disappears on you.

It's even worse when the guy happens to be dead. Because it wasn't even like I could have his license plate traced or whatever.

Not that I could blame him for leaving, I guess. I mean, I probably wouldn't have wanted to hang around in a room - that now smelled distinctly of Magic Marker - with a bunch of people who couldn't see me.

Still, I couldn't help wondering where he'd gone. I hoped to trail along after Neil Jankow, and keep me from having yet another ghost - Neil's brother Craig - to deal with. And when he'd be back.

It wasn't until I glanced at Paul's roses again that the really horrible part of it all occurred to me. And that was that the question wasn't when Jesse would be back. It was really if. Because of course, if you thought about it, why would the guy bother coming back at all?

I told CeeCee and Adam that I wasn't crying. I told them my eyes were watering from all the marker fumes. And they seemed to believe me.

Too bad the only person I didn't seem able to fool anymore was myself.

13