“Like I could,” I grumbled.

“Yes.” Father Dominic’s tone was firm. “You could. All I’m asking is that you don’t. For the good of both of you. Don’t.”

“Fine,” I said. “I won’t. I wasn’t planning to.”

“I’m delighted to hear that,” Father Dominic said. He opened a small, leather-bound book and began flipping through the pages. “Shall we begin, then?”

“I suppose.” Still grumbling, I lay back down. I couldn’t believe Father D. had just suggested what he had—that I would use my sex appeal to lure Jesse back to me. Ha! Father D. was overlooking two simple things: one being that I’m not so sure I have sex appeal, and two, that if I do, Jesse had certainly never noticed.

Still, Father Dominic had felt obliged to say something about it, which must mean he’d noticed something. Must be the dress. Not bad for $59.95.

As I lay there, a slow grin crept over my face. Father D. had used the word sexual. About me!

Excellent.

Father D. began reading from his little book. As he read, he swung this metal ball that had smoke coming out of it. The smoke was from the incense burning inside the metal ball. Let me tell you, it stank.

I couldn’t understand what Father D. was saying, since it was all in Latin. It sounded nice, though. I lay there in my black slip dress and wondered if I ought to have worn pants. I mean, who knew what I was going to find up there? What if I had to do some climbing? People might see my underwear.

You would have thought I’d be pondering more profound thoughts than this, but I am very sorry to report that the deepest thing I thought about while Father Dominic was exorcising my soul was that when this was all over, and Jesse was home, and Maria and Felix had been locked back up in their crypt where they belonged, I was going to have to take a really long soak in that hot tub Andy was installing, because let me tell you, I was sore.

And then something started happening above my head. A section of the domed ceiling disappeared and was replaced by all this smoke. Then I realized it was the smoke from the incense Father D. was waving around. It was curling like a tornado above my head.

Then, in the center of the tornado, I saw the night sky. Really. Like the dome over the top of the basilica wasn’t there anymore. I could see stars twinkling coldly. I didn’t recognize any constellations, even though Jesse had been trying to teach them to me. Back in Brooklyn, you couldn’t see the stars so well because of the city lights. So other than the Big Dipper, which you can always see, I don’t know the names of any of the constellations.

It didn’t matter. This wasn’t the sky I was seeing. Not Earth’s sky, anyway. It was something else. Someplace else.

“Susannah,” Father Dominic said gently.

I started, then looked at him. I had been, I realized, half asleep, staring up at that sky.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s time,” Father Dominic said.

chapter

fifteen

Father Dominic looks funny, I thought. Why does he look so funny?

I realized why when I sat up. That’s because only part of me sat up. The rest of me stayed where I was, lying on the choir robes with my eyes closed.

You know on Sabrina the Teenage Witch when she splits into two people, so one can go to the party with Harvey and the other can go to the witch convention with her aunts? That’s what had happened to me. I was two people now.

Except that only one of them was conscious. The other half was just lying there with her eyes closed. And you know what? That bruise on my forehead really did look disgusting. No wonder everyone who saw it recoiled in horror.

“Susannah,” Father Dominic said. “Are you all right?”

I tore my gaze from my unconscious self.

“Fine,” I said. I looked down at my spiritual self, which appeared to me to be exactly the same as the person beneath me, except that I was glowing a little. An excellent fashion accessory, by the way, if you can get it. You know, that all-over spectral glow can really do things for a girl’s complexion.

Plus something else. The bruise on my forehead? Yeah, it didn’t hurt anymore.

“You don’t have much time,” Father Dominic said. “Just half an hour.”

I blinked at him. “How am I supposed to know when half an hour is up? I don’t have a watch.” I don’t wear one because somehow they always end up getting smashed by some recalcitrant spirit. Besides, who wants to know what time it is? The news is almost always disappointing.

“Wear mine,” Father Dom said, and he took off his enormous steel-link man watch and gave it to me.

It was the first object I picked up in my new ghostly state. It felt absurdly heavy. Still, I managed to fasten it around my wrist, where it jangled loosely, like a bracelet. Or a prison shackle.

“Okay,” I said, looking up at that hole above me. “Here goes nothing.”

I had to climb, of course. Don’t ask me why I hadn’t thought of this. I mean, I had to reach up and grab the edges of that hole in time and space and boost myself up into it. And in a slip dress, no less.

Whatever. I was about halfway in when I heard a familiar voice shriek my name.

Father Dominic spun around. I leaned down from the hole—through which I could only see fog, gray fog that spritzed my face damply—and saw Jack, of all people, running down the church aisle toward us, his pale face white with fear, and something trailing behind him.

Father Dominic reached out and caught him just before he flung himself on my unconscious form. He obviously didn’t see my legs dangling from the enormous tear in the church ceiling.

“What are you doing here?” Father Dominic demanded, his face almost as white as the kid’s. “Do you have any idea what time it is? Do your parents know you’re here? They must be worried sick—”

“They’re—they’re asleep,” Jack panted. “Please, Suze forgot…she forgot her rope.” Jack held up the long white object that had been skittering along behind him as he’d run between the pews. It was my rope from our first attempt to exorcise me. “How is she going to find her way back without her rope?”

Father Dominic took the rope from Jack without a word of thanks. “It was very wrong of you, Jack,” he said disapprovingly, “to come here. What could you have been thinking? I told you it was going to be very dangerous.”