Chapter 5

Grandpa used to sing this Lightnin’ Hopkins song called Black Ghost Blues. In it, Lightnin’ is haunted at night by a shadow he calls the Black Ghost, and the entire song is him begging the Ghost to go back where it came from so he can finally get some sleep.

As a little kid, I always worried I’d find that Black Ghost hiding in my closet. But now, lying in bed with my quilt wrapped around me like a straitjacket, I could relate on a whole ’nother level.

Eighteen hours. That was how much time had passed since the accident in quarantine yesterday. And that human soulshine still hadn’t come back to me.

How was that even possible? Ammonites, clams, flying reptiles—nothing I summoned ever lasted longer than fifteen minutes.

I kept refreshing the front page of The Glen Rose Reporter, just to cover my bases in case Mom checked the news. So far, so good—no homeless nudists making headlines. For now.

Over the last couple sleepless hours, I’d thought this whole thing inside-out. And the way I saw it, I’d have to act natural until one of two things happened. Either that soulshine would whoosh back to me in its own good time and all this would settle quietly—or at some point, my Black Ghost would stumble into public. But then what?

My door creaked open. Mom. I pretended to be asleep.

“Hey.” She sat on my bed and rested her hand on my back. “Martina dropped something off for you.”

I was planning to keep playing possum, but then I sensed soulshine somewhere downstairs. I rolled over and shielded my eyes from the light leaking through my curtains. “Is it . . . bones?”

Mom smooched my forehead. “Get your clothes on and come find out.”

I threw on a white tank top and pink, star-print shorts, pulled my hair on top of my head in a puff, and came down to the breakfast nook.

As I passed Grandpa John’s old guitar on its stand in the dining room, I kissed my fingers and touched the polished headstock to pay respects. There wasn’t a glimmer of soulshine in those strings—but still, every time I passed that guitar, I felt him close.

Yeesh. What would he think of me now?

A basket of fresh-baked biscuits and a cold pitcher of iced tea sat in the middle of the dining table. Out the big windows, dragonflies zipped around the acre of prairie between our house and the old barn, getting in some playtime before the real heat set in.

I plopped down at my seat, where Mom had already set a plate for me.

On that plate sat a little black ring box. A box hissing with the static of soulshine.

I glanced at Grandpa’s guitar. Scooted its stand a couple inches away with my foot.

Safety first.

Mom sat down across from me with a bowl of yogurt and a handful of blackberries from Grandpa’s out-of-control garden.

I turned the ring box in my hands. C. marri was Sharpied on the tape across the lid. “What is it?”

“Baby-proof.” Mom poured a glass of sweet tea and slid it over to me. “Dr. Jacobs thought you might need some training wheels while we get your magic under control.”

I cracked the lid open. Inside, packed in cotton, was a rock that looked like a few pieces of caramel corn all melted together. I took it out and rolled it in my palm. The whole thing was full of tiny pores and seeping with soulshine. Not just a rock—a fossil. Or part of one.

Then I realized, I didn’t just have to wait around for my Black Ghost to come to me.

The paleo lab wanted me to get control. So that’s what I was gonna do—suck that sucker back in. Lock him down before he blew up my life.

But how? That was a whole different problem.

“You okay?” Mom asked.

I put the fossil Dr. Jacobs sent me back in the ring box. “You said Grandpa John knew how to withdraw these?”

“He didn’t cast in front of me much. But when he did, he could shut it down.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. He probably told you more about his magic than he ever told me.”

This again. “Why?” I sat back in my chair so hard it squeaked. “I don’t get how you grew up in a family of mages and still don’t know a thing about magic.”

Mom looked into what was probably her second cup of coffee like she was weighing her options. And when she finally looked back up, she sighed and said, “I’m gonna tell you a story you’ve never heard before.”

I froze and stared at her like I’d just come face-to-face with a deer in the wild.

For a long second, there was no sound in the house but the tiny click of the oven cooling down.

“When I was two or three years old, we visited my momma’s side of the family for Thanksgiving dinner.” Mom opened the sugar bowl in the middle of the table and spooned a scoop into her coffee. “While we were there, some men who’d been looking for your grandpa for a very long time found him. And they asked him to bring somebody back from the dead.”

“Who?”

“Hard to say. It’s a long list. Point is, your grandpa said no thank you.” She stirred the sugar in. “So they came back later that night and took me.”

I sat forward. “You were kidnapped?”

“I was little. I don’t remember much.” She dinged her spoon dry on the rim of her mug and took a test sip. “The T. rex head busting through the drywall, though—that, I remember.”

“He had a T. rex?” I almost knocked over my sweet tea. “Why am I learning this at eight AM on a Tuesday?

“Well, I’m fine, aren’t I?” She opened her arms to show me she was still here, still the same. “All I know is your grandpa came after me and got me back, and we never heard from those people again.”

I thought of Acrocanthosaurus’ crushing jaws. Not many problems that couldn’t be solved with teeth like that.

“Wow.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Mom touched my hand. “You okay?”

“Uh.” I shifted in my seat. “Yeah. I mean it’s not, like, surprising.”

I knew how rare power like ours was. Grandpa told me that people could get obsessive if they thought they could bring someone back from the dead. But this brought a whole new layer of meaning to how Mom ran my life. Why she told me to keep my mouth shut when my friends talked about their magic heritage. Why she’d been keeping my powers on such a short leash. Why she posed as mage at the Hemming instead of me.

“That story just brings the whole thing home,” I said.

“I think that Thanksgiving was the day your grandpa decided that he didn’t want magic in my life until it had to be. He wanted me to feel safe, and it worked.” She wrapped both hands around her coffee and looked out the window. “When we finally decided I probably didn’t have the Slumber touch, I think he was pretty relieved.”

“But then I was born.”

“And I was totally unprepared.” She shook her head. “I wish I’d pushed him to teach you sooner. This is silly, but it took a while for me to accept that at some point he would, you know. Die.” She shrugged, but I could tell the word still stung. “I didn’t realize we were running out of time.”

That was it, then. End of the line. “So, there’s no secret magic journal or rotating bookcase I should know about, right? I’m on my own?”

“You’re not on your own.” She paused. “But yes. We’re on our own.”

*

After breakfast, Mom carried a big cardboard box out of the master bedroom. “There’s a clothing drive at church. I’m donating some of Grandpa’s stuff.”

“How long will you be gone?” I hoped that didn’t sound too suspicious.

She grabbed her keys from the horseshoe hooks by the door. “Maybe forty minutes.”

Nuts. Not enough time to hunt down the Black Ghost. Now I had no choice but to wait. Maybe I’d have a chance to sneak out tonight.

Mom pointed at the little box on the dining table, the mystery bone from the paleo team. “Don’t summon that thing without me.”

“Yeah, no. Of course not.” That’d be a death-wishy move.

Mom put the box of clothes in the back of the 4Runner and drove off.

I was wasting my time sitting around the house. At least if I did the dishes now, I’d be ready to go on my secret mission the next time she picked up her keys.

I turned the radio up in the kitchen and fleshed out my master plan while stacking plates in the cabinet. The Ghost had to be haunting Dinosaur Valley. It just made the most sense.

For one thing, the Hemming Museum parking lot backed up to the state park—and that was where I lost him. For another, he’d been lying low since noon yesterday. And though I didn’t get a great look at him, I couldn’t exactly picture this guy sipping an ice cream soda at Shoo Fly downtown. Ghost had to be hiding. And where better to hunker down than two square miles of hills and cedar?

I checked the satellite map. If I cut through some private property, I could enter the park from the back and pick up the trail that ran along the border. All I’d have to do was duck under some barbed wire. And y’know, trespass. I guess I could drop the entry fee in their donations box next time I visited the legal way.

Nuke and I had some kind of magic bond, a connection let me feel his feelings. Maybe I was connected to Ghost too. Maybe if I focused I could find him.

The local radio station I had on in the background switched to a commercial that brought all my schemes to a screeching halt.

I almost dropped the big serving spoon I was about to put away. “Oh my gosh, this is my song.”

Jones and Freeland’s Tractor Store. It had to be the worst jingle in American history, and Mom and I sang it every time it came on in the car.

I slung the damp dish towel over my shoulder and sang into the spoon like a mic. Somewhere on the highway I bet Mom was singing too.

“Jones and Freeland’s Tractor Store / Has the ranch supplies you’re lookin’ for / We stock feed and seed and chow galore / We got tillers and mowers and oodles more/”—I tossed the spoon into the sink, slid across the hall into the dining room, and grabbed Grandpa’s guitar out of its stand for a big finish—“at Jones and Freeland’s Tractor Stooore!” I dropped to my knees and strummed the strings rapid-fire.

Magic left my body like steam. The feeling punched a pit in my stomach.

I shut my mouth and dropped the guitar.

The magic stopped like I lifted a whistling kettle off a hot burner. The radio went on without me.

Slowly, I turned to look at Dr. Jacobs’ ring box sitting on the table.

Oh, man. I forgot it was here. But seriously? The tractor store jingle?

Wait. Why were my feet warm?

Something bumped under the floorboards.

I jumped, steadying myself against the sink. Whatever that was, it wasn’t a possum.

The bumping and scuffing shifted from the dining room to the entryway.

Still holding a damp dish towel, I followed the sounds from the dining room to the front door, all the way out onto the porch.

Something scuffled under the steps.

I crouched down, took my dish towel in both hands, and got ready to pounce. Come on. Nice and easy . . .

The second the dinosaur’s head popped out from under the steps, I blinded it with the towel. “Gotcha!” I scooped it up by its scaley belly and dragged it out from under the porch.

It squeaked when I lifted it off the ground. It was only about the size of a turkey, but it was a kicker.

I hugged the wriggling dinosaur against my stomach, so it was bicycle-kicking nothing but air, and hurried inside. “Don’t bite, don’t bite, don’t bite.”

It lashed its head out from under the dish towel, opened its big, black eyes and tortoise beak wide, and chomped down on my hand.

“Ow, you gremlin!” I dropped it on the floor.

It rolled, scrabbling all four claws on slick hardwood. When its chicken feet finally caught some traction, bounced up on two legs and dodged into the kitchen. Its claws click-clacked somewhere out of sight.

I kicked the front door shut and checked my hand. No severed pinkie. Not even blood. But my fingers throbbed like I slammed them in the door.

In the kitchen, the skittering of toe claws on slick floor went silent.

I peeked around the corner.

The little dinosaur hunching under the sink stared back at me with too-far-apart eyes. Its nostrils flared and its belly swelled with every quick breath in.

This was the first chance I had to really look at it. Athletic legs. Itty-bitty hands. Round, lamby head. Pebble scales in gunmetal gray. Most of its body was tail—long, jewel-blue tail. It looked like one of those duck-billed dinosaurs, only travel size.

Now that we weren’t locked in mortal combat, I could pay attention to the feelings it was broadcasting on our private magical frequency. The kitchen suddenly seemed huge.

This guy was pure prey instinct, the Happy Meal of prehistoric Texas—and he knew it. My laser stare wasn’t making him feel less like a KitKat stuck in a vending machine.

“I hear you, Bitey Face.” I got down on my knees, took a breath, and focused on pushing pure calm down the line that connected us. “You’re okay.”

Bitey Face exhaled with me. The tip of his blue tail drooped slightly.

“Yeah. You got it.” I reached for him with my chomped hand. It was still sore, but I needed to save my good hand for important stuff—like dialing animal control. “C’mere.”

He crept out from under the sink and inched toward my open hand, claws clicking on the floor.

My fingertips brushed his snuffling nostrils. He was so close I could see every little nubby bump on his eyelids.

He stretched his slim, curved neck out and tested my knuckles with a nibble.

This time, his beak on my hand made me grin. I stroked the round scales between his eyes.

My phone rumbled.

The buzzing sound sent Bitey ping-ponging around the kitchen. His out-of-control tail knocked the trashcan over.

“Dang it.” I scrambled for my phone, went for the red button.

My finger slipped on green.

“Cecelia?” Mom. Color me dying inside. “Can you see if I left Grandpa’s coat in his room?”

“Uhh”—I gritted my teeth as Bitey Face made a flying leap onto the counter—“I’m not seeing it.”

He slipped and crashed into a sink full of pots and pans.

“What’s that sound?” Mom asked.

“I’m, uh, loading the washer.” She told me not to do this, exactly. But I could fix my mistake. I just needed fifteen minutes.

A plate shattered. I winced and covered the phone too late.

Bitey jumped down, shot between my legs, and disappeared into the dining room.

“Cecelia Slumber.” Mom’s voice went scary quiet. “There better not be a dinosaur in my house.”

I hung up. I don’t know, I panicked.

A text dinged. Mom again. I’m coming home.

The rotten feeling in my stomach came out as a long, high groan. So much for fifteen minutes.

Bitey skidded back into the kitchen. Swung past me.

I snatched him up. When I lifted him off the floor his legs were still running. I held him under his armpits like a cat and turned him around to face me. “We gotta get you out of here.”

I grabbed a bag of celery out of the fridge, toted Bitey into the living room, and set him on the floor.

He plopped down on the rug, took a celery stick from me with both little paws, and started chomping away.

I sat on the edge of Grandpa John’s recliner and rubbed my slightly-sweaty palms together. “Okay.” I pointed my fingers at him like a wizard. “Disappear.”

He stared at me with big, wet eyes, smacking with his mouth open.

“Yeah. I didn’t think so.” That didn’t work on Nuke either.

Bitey summoned when I sang the stupid tractor store jingle. If that made him, maybe it could unmake him. “Hold on.” I wrote the lyrics on a napkin. Flipped them backward. “Rotes rotcart Sdnaleerf dna Snoje . . .”

I wasn’t feeling that magic rush. Didn’t seem like Bitey was either.

“Yeah, no, that’s stupid.” I scratched the words out and crumpled the napkin.

He reached out with tiny hands for another celery stick.

That was fast. “Okay, okay, don’t get greedy.” As I handed him a second stalk, my eyes wandered to the umbrella holder by the door and settled on a cane. A cane with a really heavy head.

Mom was probably almost home. And there was still one way out of this.

Bitey Face stopped gnawing on his celery to glance between me and the umbrella holder.

My ears got hot. “I wasn’t gonna.”

Outside, the gravel in our driveway crunched. Mom’s 4Runner rolled up so fast it left dust clouds.

The front door swung open.

Bitey Face vaulted over the coffee table, sweeping a whole chess set onto the floor. He landed in my lap so hard the recliner spun.

Mom stood in the threshold, staring through her fingers.

I held Bitey tight in my lap. Gulped. “I can explain.”

Her voice came out so quiet. So tight. “What am I looking at?”

“This is Bitey Face.”

She looked over the chess pieces scattered all over the floor with dead eyes. “Bitey.”

“Last name Face.”

“I specifically asked you not to do this.” She shut the door. “This right here.”

“I forgot the fossil was here and I was in the kitchen and the Tractor Store commercial came on and now he’s here so I tried to take him back but I still can’t get him to go.” I took a deep breath.

“Hold up.” Mom raised a finger to stop me. Pointed at Bitey. “It’s been here the whole time I was gone?”

Besides when I was doing dishes . . . “Almost.”

“Baby, it’s been half an hour.”

I froze. “What?”

She dropped her keys and came into the living room. “He’s been here for thirty minutes?”

“No. It has to be more like—” Twenty. “Oh.” My heartrate picked up. “Ohh boy.” This was the Black Ghost all over again. “This isn’t normal. It’s supposed to be fifteen minutes.” Fifteen. On the flipping dot. Since when did my expiration date get extended? There had to be something wrong with me. “My magic is busted.”

“There’s no reason to overreact.” She knelt down in front of me, hesitated at Bitey Face loafing on my lap, and finally decided it was probably safe to rest her hand on my knee. “This has never happened before. There must be a reason.”

But this had happened before. It was still happening.

I swore I was about to throw up. I had to tell her about the human soulshine. This whole thing was getting way out of control. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Mom?”

“One second.” She narrowed her eyes at Bitey Face, who was smacking celery pulp. “What is in your mouth?”

“I was keeping him busy so I gave him—” I stopped short.

Bitey Face grabbed my hand with his tiny paws, begging for another celery stick. When I didn’t cough up the goods, he let out a tiny beep.

Mom tipped her head to look me in the eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s what’s different.” A chill sneaked up my spine. “I fed him.”

Which meant wherever Ghost was?

He had to be eating.