This was a little too much for a Tuesday morning. I mean, I had already had a pretty crummy night’s sleep thanks to this guy. Then, to hear something like this come out of his mouth…well, let’s just say I was not at my sharpest, so what happened next can hardly be described as my fault.

“Take over his brother’s body?” I echoed. I had lowered my books until they rested in my lap. Now I reached out and gripped the arms of my computer chair, my nails sinking into the cheap foam-padded armrests. “What are you talking about?”

One of Paul’s dark eyebrows hiked up. “Doesn’t sound familiar, eh? What has the good father been teaching you, I wonder? Not much, from the sound of things.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “How can someone take over someone else’s body?”

“I told you,” Paul said, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head, “that there was a lot you didn’t know about being a mediator. And a lot more that I could teach you, if you’d just give me the chance.”

I stared at him. I really had no idea what he was talking about with this body-swapping thing. It sounded like something from the Sci-Fi Channel. And I wasn’t sure if Paul was just feeding me a line, something, anything, to get me to do what he wanted.

But what if he wasn’t? What if there was seriously a way to—

I wanted to know. My God, I wanted to know more than I had ever wanted anything in my life.

“All right,” I said, feeling the sweat that had broken out beneath my palms, making the chair’s armrests slick with moisture. But I didn’t care. My heart was in my throat, and still I didn’t care. “All right. I’ll come over to your place after school. But only if you’ll tell me about…about that.”

Something flashed through Paul’s blue eyes. Just a gleam, and I saw it only for a moment before it was gone again. It was something animal-like, almost feral. I couldn’t say just what, exactly, it had been.

All I knew was that the next minute, Paul was smiling at me—smiling, not grinning.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll pick you up by the main gate at three. Be there on time, or I’ll leave without you.”

chapter

eight

I wasn’t, of course, going to meet him. I mean, despite ample evidence to the contrary, I am not stupid. I have, in the past, met various people at various appointed times and found myself, hours later, either tied to a chair, thrust into a parallel dimension, forced to don one-piece swimsuits, or being otherwise cruelly mistreated. I was not going to meet Paul Slater after school. I was so not.

And then I did anyway.

Well, what else was I supposed to do? The lure was just too great. I mean, actual documented evidence about mediators? Something about people being able to take over other people’s bodies? All the nightmares about long, fog-enshrouded hallways in the world were not going to keep me from finding out the truth at last about what I was and what I could do. I had spent too many years wondering just that to allow an opportunity like this to slip from my fingers. I had never, unlike Father Dominic, been able merely to accept the cards I’d been dealt…. I wanted toknow why they’d been dealt to me and how. I had to know.

And if, in order to find out, I had to spend time with someone who regularly haunted my sleep, so be it. It was worth the sacrifice.

Or I hoped it would be, anyway.

Adam and CeeCee weren’t too happy about it, of course. As the last class of the day let out, they met me in the hallway—I was visibly limping, thanks to my shoes, but CeeCee didn’t notice. She was too busy consulting the list she’d drawn up in bio.

“All right,” she said. “We’ve got to head on over to Safeway for markers, glitter, glue, and poster board. Adam, does your mom still have those dowels in the garage from when she went on that Amish chair-making kick? Because we could use them for the Vote for Suze placards.”

“Uh,” I said, hobbling along beside them. “You guys.”

“Suze, can we take all the stuff over to your place to assemble it? I’d say we could take it to my place, but you know my sisters. They’ll probably roller-skate over it or whatever.”

“Guys,” I said. “Look. I appreciate this and all. I really do. But I can’t come with you. I’ve already got plans.”

Adam and CeeCee exchanged glances.

“Oh?” CeeCee said. “Meeting the mysterious Jesse, are we?”

“Uh,” I said. “Not exactly—”

At that moment, Paul came past us in the hall. He said to me, noticing my limp, “Let me just pull the car around to the side door. That way you won’t have to walk to the gate,” and breezed on by.

Adam gave me a scandalized look. “Fraternizing with the enemy!” he cried. “For shame, wench!”

CeeCee looked equally stunned. “You’re going out with him?” She shook her head so that her stick-straight white-blond hair shimmered. “What about Jesse?”

“I’m not going out with him,” I said uncomfortably. “We’re just…working on a project together.”

“What project?” CeeCee’s eyes, behind the lenses of her glasses, narrowed. “For what class?”

“It’s…” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, hoping to find some relief from my cruel shoes, all to no avail. “It’s not for school, really. It’s more for…for…church.”

Even as the word came out of my mouth, I knew I’d made a mistake. CeeCee wouldn’t mind being left alone with Adam—in fact, she’d probably love it—but she wasn’t about to let me off the hook without a good reason.

“Church?” CeeCee looked mad. “You’re Jewish, Suze, in case I need to remind you.”

“Well, not technically, really,” I said. “I mean, my dad was, but my mom isn’t—” A car horn sounded just beyond the ornately scrolled gate we were standing behind. “Oops, that’s Paul. Gotta go, sorry.”

Then, moving pretty quickly for a girl who felt shooting stabs of pain go up her legs with every step, I hightailed it out to Paul’s convertible and slid into the passenger seat with a sigh of relief at being in a seated position once more and a feeling that, at last, I was going to find out a thing or two about who—or what—I really was….