Whispers from the Dead Read online

  Books by Joan Lowery Nixon

  FICTION

  A Candidate for Murder

  The Dark and Deadly Pool

  Don’t Scream

  The Ghosts of Now

  Ghost Town: Seven Ghostly Stories

  The Haunting

  In the Face of Danger

  The Island of Dangerous Dreams

  The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore

  Laugh Till You Cry

  Murdered, My Sweet

  The Name of the Game Was Murder

  Nightmare

  Nobody’s There

  The Other Side of Dark

  Playing for Keeps

  Search for the Shadowman

  Secret, Silent Screams

  Shadowmaker

  The Specter

  Spirit Seeker

  The Stalker

  The Trap

  The Weekend Was Murder!

  Whispers from the Dead

  Who Are You?

  NONFICTION

  The Making of a Writer

  Who is trying to reach Sarah? And why?

  Enough early-evening light streamed through the window next to the front door to yellow the walls, spreading its glow across a spindly antique table I’d never seen before. On it, lying on its side, was an unfamiliar crystal vase of early spring sweet peas, spilled and dripping onto white marblelike tiles.

  The sound of crying stopped. Then, out of the silence came a whisper so heartbreaking, so desperate, that it tugged me forward: “¡Ayúdame! ¡Ayúdame!”

  My heart was pounding so loudly that I could hear it in my ears as I moved closer to the railing, bent over, and looked straight down.

  Directly below me, under the brown-red splattered walls, lay a pool of blood.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 1989 by Joan Lowery Nixon

  Cover illustration copyright © by Tim Barrall

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House Company. Originally published in hardcover by Delacorte Press, New York, in 1989.

  Laurel-Leaf Books with the colophon is a registered trademark of Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-82346-5

  First Delacorte Press Ebook Edition 2013

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For my aunt Genevieve Meyer with love

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Because the things that happened to me were so strange, I know that some people will find them hard to believe. It’s like when your mind slides from sleeping to waking and something takes place that’s so bizarre, you tell yourself, “I have to be dreaming. This couldn’t be real.” Or when you jolt awake from a nightmare, and there are still unfamiliar shapes that move through your dark room, and you stare at them with wide-open eyes, knowing they can’t exist and you must be awake.

  There will be more questions, and I’ll have to repeat the answers over and over—even to myself—so I’ve bought a thick, yellow, lined tablet, and I’m going to write down everything that took place, beginning with the day I died.

  My name is Sarah Darnell. I’m sixteen—almost seventeen—and I’m tall, with long, curly, dark hair. I’m a little bit underweight, but—

  No. That’s not the way to start this story, with facts like those on a driver’s license. I’ll have to start at the beginning, when we lived in Springdale, Missouri, before we moved to Houston, and write about the drowning. I hate to write about it because I know the cold and the terror will crawl back into my mind and I won’t be able to hide from it, but I haven’t got a choice. You’ll have to know what happened.

  It was a Saturday morning, and Marcie, my best friend, had telephoned early, waking me. “Andy just called,” she said. “Everybody’s going to the lake. Come on. Get out of bed and grab your bathing suit. We’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

  Summer had come early this year, spring flowers barely budding before wilting in the heat, but I pulled the sheet up over my head and shivered. “The water will still be cold,” I complained.

  Marcie laughed, and I could picture her wide, lop-sided smile. “Not that cold,” she said. “Come on. Andy and Barbie are bringing some stuff so we can cook hot dogs, and Kent’s mom just made a batch of cookies. It’s going to be fun.”

  It would be. All of us had been good friends since we were little kids, and I didn’t want to be left out of the party. “I’ll be ready,” I said.

  I was right about the water, so cold that it made us gasp for breath and yell and thrash around until we got used to it and raced each other out to the old float. Andy got there first. He grabbed my hand and helped me scramble up the side of the float. “You’re looking good,” he said, not letting go of my hand. “I like that bathing suit.”

  I grinned at him. I’d had a big crush on Andy a few years ago and tagged after him whenever I could—a lovesick seventh-grader impressed by a boy two years older, taller than I was, and strong enough to smash soft-drink cans in one hand.

  And now? Well, the possibility of falling a little bit in love again with Andy was an attractive thought. I could feel my cheeks grow warm, and to cover my blush I pulled my hand away and dived deep, enjoying the pale green water as it slid around my body. A school of minnows silver-streaked across my path, leaving speckles of reflected light in their wake. I was alone in a beautiful, silent world that belonged only to me, until my lungs ached for air and I flip-flopped, shooting up toward the surface of the water.

  I heard Kent yell, “Cannonball!” seconds before he slammed against me, driving me downward through the icy water of the lake into a tangle of vines that twisted around my ankles. My head was a fireball of pain, and my lungs burned with such agony, I thought they’d explode as I struggled desperately to get free.

  Suddenly I became aware that the pain had gone, and I was set apart—like a mildly curious bystander—watching the entire scene. Some of the kids dived from the float, managing together to tear through the vines and release my body. They laid it facedown on the float, and Andy—who had worked most summers as a lifeguard—grabbed my waist, hoisting me to let the water run from my open mouth. He quickly rolled me onto my back, placed his mouth over mine, and began to puff bursts of air into my lungs.

  I moved closer, not wanting to look at this body I had left behind, yet at the same time not wanting to leave. I knew I had died, and it puzzled me that the others didn’t know this too. I laid a hand on Andy’s shoulder, even though I knew he couldn’t feel it. “Poor Andy.
Don’t try. It’s too late,” I said, but of course he couldn’t hear me.

  Marcie wailed and struck at Kent with both fists. “You idiot! You stupid jerk!”

  Kent kept sobbing. “I didn’t know Sarah was under me when I jumped. Honest, I didn’t know.” I wanted to tell him that I didn’t blame him, but I began to dream of lights and voices, and when my dream ended, I was in a hospital bed, amazed to see my mother and father bending over me.

  “I’m still here,” I whispered, bewildered by the direction my dream had taken. My parents hugged me and began to cry.

  Later I held Andy tightly and said, “You saved my life,” but I wasn’t telling him the truth. Of course I was alive. I was here, with my family and my friends, as I’d always been; but at the same time I felt as though a part of me still inhabited another shadowy world.

  I knew this because of the spirit.

  I don’t know exactly what to call it: a spirit, a presence, a wraith. It was invisible, it was soundless, yet I knew it was there, shadowing me in a quiet, almost gentle way.

  At first I was frightened. Did you ever have the feeling that you were being watched and turn around quickly and find someone staring at you? Well, I’d turn, but no one would be there; yet I’d still have the creepy feeling that someone was present, someone whose eyes were still upon me.

  I’d even reached out, trying to touch whatever might be there. “Who are you?” I’d whispered into the silence, but no one answered.

  I didn’t tell Mom or Dad about the presence. What could I say that wouldn’t sound ridiculous and wouldn’t cause Mom to worry about me? Besides, I began to get used to my invisible shadow. I don’t remember exactly when or why I stopped being afraid, maybe when it occurred to me that this presence was like someone standing protectively by my side, someone who cared about me.

  That’s when I made a terrible mistake.

  Marcie, Andy, Kent—all of us—were at Marcie’s house one evening, and Kent began telling one of those weird murderer-with-an-iron-claw stories that’s always supposed to have happened to a friend of a friend. Andy topped Kent’s story with a gruesome ghost story, and we were laughing and acting so crazy that I suddenly said, “I’ll tell you something that’s really true! Listen to what’s been happening to me!” Like a fool, I blurted out the whole story about the spirit who shadowed me.

  Nobody laughed. When I finished, their glances slid away. It was easy to see what they were thinking. Sarah’s weird. She’s strange. My face flushed hotly, and I wondered if it was possible to die from embarrassment. Why had I been so stupid as to tell them? To make everything even worse, I felt as though I’d somehow betrayed the invisible spirit.

  Marcie finally broke the silence by saying, “Sarah, something’s wrong. It’s creepy. Have you told your parents what you told us?”

  “No,” I said. I tried a laugh but couldn’t make it. “And I wish now I hadn’t told you.”

  A little frown dipped between Marcie’s eyebrows as she said, “I really think you should tell your parents.”

  I did, hoping, I guess, that I’d get reassurance from Mom; but it didn’t happen that way. Mom immediately took me to Dr. Clark, our family doctor, and I had to repeat the story to him.

  Dr. Clark was the first person who had listened to me calmly. “There’ve been some studies made about this—what you might call a haunted feeling,” he told us.

  “What do you mean?” Mom’s voice was high-pitched, and she gripped the edge of her chair.

  “A number of children who’ve been on the brink of death and recovered have claimed they were being followed by an invisible presence. One of them was the author, Edith Wharton.”

  I got hung up on the word children and complained. “I’m not a child.”

  “You’re only sixteen, Sarah, so you’re not an adult,” Dr. Clark answered. “Now stop interrupting so I can tell you the rest. The author of one study believes that some children who have had a near-death experience made contact with another dimension and are reluctant to lose this contact, so they become more sensitive or intuitive to what you might call otherworldly beings.”

  Mom gasped. What he said scared me too. “Are you talking ghosts?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “I’m just trying to tell you that other people have experienced what you have, that you’re not alone in having these unusual sensations. I thought it might help you to know that.”

  It didn’t help. I wanted control over my own mind. I didn’t want to be some kind of weird link between two worlds. Weird Sarah. Haunted Sarah. I shivered.

  “What do we do about this?” Mom’s voice hit another high note, and she gripped my hand.

  Dr. Clark reached over and patted her shoulder. “For one thing, Dorothy, don’t worry,” he said. “These odd experiences that have been bothering Sarah will eventually fade out and disappear as the trauma recedes.”

  “As the trauma recedes?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

  “In your case, probably when you stop reliving your fear of drowning,” he told me.

  “I almost drowned. How can I not remember that?”

  “I didn’t say ‘remember.’ I said, ‘relive.’ ”

  “Does Sarah need counseling? Some kind of therapy?” Mom asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Dr. Clark said as he smiled at me. “I think she needs to stay busy with her friends. Have fun, go swimming again.”

  It was hard to hold back a shudder. Go swimming? Never!

  During the weeks that followed, Mom and Dad were strong and steady, as they’d always been, but sometimes a little scared-rabbit look flickered in Mom’s eyes, and I wondered what she thought—really thought—about what was going on in my mind.

  I wished I knew myself.

  Sometimes I’d groan, wondering, Why did this happen to me? And why had I been dumb enough to talk about it?

  It was obvious that what I had told them made my friends uncomfortable. Marcie was the only one who stood by me; but sometimes, when we were alone together, watching TV or walking to the mall, even she’d get jumpy. “Is everything okay?” she’d ask, and I’d wonder if she was afraid of the spirit or of me.

  The passage of time helped the memories to fade, and even though sometimes at night the water closed over my head and I awoke from my nightmare struggling for air, the dreams came less and less frequently.

  I tried to convince myself that everything soon would be as it once was. I wouldn’t let myself think beyond that point. And I was surprised when one day it dawned on me that my secret wraith had slipped away. I was even more surprised when I discovered that it was more like a loss than a victory. I had to get rid of you, I thought. I had to stay in control. But it wasn’t there to hear me.

  “Everything will be back to normal now,” I convinced myself, but I was wrong.

  Dad got the promotion he’d been hoping for, which meant he’d make a couple of moves, the first one to his company’s Houston office. He brought home a bottle of champagne, and his face shone as he told us his news.

  I wanted to cry, to scream, “We can’t leave Springdale! This is our home!” But everything had changed, and it wouldn’t be our home any longer.

  Dad said to Mom, “I’ll have to report to the new office by next week. If you can take care of winding up the details here, I’ll do the house-hunting for us in Houston.”

  For just an instant Mom had looked wistfully at her collection of potted plants in the sunny bay window. “Make it a beautiful house,” she said.

  “I promise,” he answered.

  It wasn’t until later, after I’d rushed to Marcie’s house to tell her we’d be leaving, that I gave in to my tears. Marcie cried, too, but at the same time her eyes held a look of almost giddy relief—the same kind of look someone gets when she’s called on to solve a tough problem in geometry and makes it.

  “Maybe I can come back next summer for a visit,” I told her, “and in the meantime we can write lots of letters.”

  “Su
re,” Marcie agreed, “but you know me. I’m not much of a letter writer.”

  My silent shadow had vanished, but so had my friends. I wanted to blame the shadow, but I couldn’t. I knew that the pain from the loneliness that smothered me was my own fault for telling. Was I totally free of any link to another world? I couldn’t be sure. But no matter what happened to me in the future, I’d keep it to myself, even keep it from Mom and Dad. I’d never be humiliated like that again.

  Chapter

  One

  As we stood outside the empty, contemporary-style house that was to be our Houston home, Mom said, “Frankly, I can’t believe it. This neighborhood, this house—how can we afford it?”

  Dad grinned. “Trust me,” he said. He pulled the house key from his pocket and told us, “The electricity’s on, so the air-conditioning should have cooled the house. Just give me a few minutes to open drapes and let in the sunlight before you come inside. I want you to see the house at its best.” He sprinted off, disappearing through the large front door.

  Mom glanced to each side at the large houses on the street, then back to our house. “I really didn’t expect anything like this,” she said. She clasped my hand, the way she would when I was very young and we’d cross the street, but I could tell that this time she was the one needing help. “It’s not much like our house in Springdale,” she added.

  “It’s a lot bigger,” I said, not knowing how to reassure her.

  “Sarah,” Mom said, “I know it’s hard to move away from friends, from the home you’re used to. It’s—”

  I interrupted brusquely. “It’s okay, Mom. We don’t have to talk about it.”

  But she finished the sentence she’d begun. “It’s hard for me too,” she murmured. Mom gave my hand a little squeeze and raised her voice as though determined to be cheerful. “Your father’s had enough time to get things ready. Let’s see what our house looks like on the inside.”

  She threw open the door and stepped into the entry hall, and I followed. “Oh!” Mom said, staring up at the high ceiling. “This is beautiful!” But I couldn’t move. I felt as though I’d been sucked into a cold, smothering mist that surged forward, its thudding heartbeat racing, pounding against my forehead like hammer blows. The echo of a scream beat against my mind, and I gasped in panic.