“It’s not hard to guess why.”

“More sarcasm? The other children can’t see that the poor girl is haunted.”

“Of course not. But she tried to carve the word stupid in her own arm with a compass in the middle of class. They may not be able to see Lucia, but they can definitely tell there’s something wrong with Becca. The less enlightened among them are naturally going to tease the crap out of her for it.”

Father Dominic sighed. “If you talk like this about our students in front of Sister Ernestine, it’s going to be extremely difficult for me to convince her to hire you full time, with pay. You do realize this, don’t you, Susannah?”

I let out a sigh of my own. “Especially if I dress immodestly. Fine, Father, I get it. I’ll ratchet up the sensitive psychobabble in front of the nun, okay? But in the meantime we’ve got to find out who Lucia is, and who or what it is she thinks she’s protecting Becca from, before she protects Becca to death. Does it say anything in that file about horses?”

“Horses?” Father Dominic looked perplexed. “No. Why?”

“Lucia is dressed in riding clothes and carries a stuffed horse. You know the dead usually appear in the clothing they were wearing right before they bit the dust.” He gave me a disapproving look. “Um, in which they felt most alive. Becca wears a horse pendant. She twists it when she’s feeling nervous. Horses are the only clue I can find that links the two of them.”

“Horses,” Father Dominic murmured, flipping through the file. “Horseback riding. There’s nothing in here about—” Suddenly, he froze as if he’d seen something in the file. “Oh, dear.”

“What? What is it?”

“It’s funny you should mention horseback riding, Susannah. Because I believe I do remember now a girl who—”

His blue eyes got a far away look in them as he stared out one of the office windows at a group of middle-aged tourists who’d just pulled up on a bus outside the mission, and were now milling around the courtyard, taking photos and admiring the flowers and statues and fountains. It was strange to go to school at a place that was also a tourist destination, and even stranger to work at one, especially considering all the money those tourists were spending in the gift shop (and the school still couldn’t scrape together a salary for me).

But Father Dominic didn’t appear to really be seeing these visitors from the Midwest.

“You know, I think I do recall a riding accident involving a child. It was in the newspaper—the one your friend Miss Webb works for—some time ago. It could very well have been around the time that Becca’s troubles started.”

Father Dominic glanced through the girl’s file until he saw something. Then he stopped flipping and tapped a page, speaking in a more excited voice.

“Yes. Yes, exactly. Here it is. I remember now. It says here that Becca attended the Academy of the Sacred Trinity for first and second grades. That would have been around the same time that it happened.”

“That what happened?” I love him like he was my own grandfather, but like my own grandfather, he drove me nuts sometimes. I had a feeling I knew what he’d say if I brought up Paul: Well, what have you been doing, Susannah, to lead that boy on?

“The accident,” he said. “There’s no mention of it in Becca’s file, oddly enough. But I do think Becca must have known the girl. They would have been in the same grade . . . possibly even in the same riding class. Otherwise there’s nothing else to explain their intense connection—”

“Wait,” I said. “You think Lucia was the girl in the riding accident?”

“It would explain quite a lot. Becca would have been traumatized by such a tragedy.”

“What tragedy?” I asked. “Not to say a riding accident doesn’t sound terrible, and it’s always awful when a child dies, but—”

“Not an accident like this,” Father Dominic said. “This one was ghastly, which is why I remember it, even after all these years. The girl in question—who was quite young—was out riding with her instructor when her horse was spooked by something. It took off, but the little girl managed to stay atop it.”

“Astride. I think they say astride, not atop . . . she wasn’t thrown off?”

“Not right away. I remember the article saying she was quite a skilled rider, for her age. That’s how she managed to stay astride for so long, and why it took so long for them to find her. And then when they did . . .”

“Yes?”

“It was too late.”

doce

“I think I remember that the coroner ruled that her death was caused by asphyxiation,” Father Dominic said.

“Asphyxiation?” I was confused. “Who strangled her, the horse?”

“Susannah, you watch entirely too much television.”

This is untrue. I don’t watch enough television. I don’t have time, due to my studies, budding career, romantic life, and, of course, busy NCDP-busting schedule.

“When she fell from the horse,” Father Dominic went on, before I could argue, “I believe her spinal cord was severed, cutting off her breathing. I suppose she might have been saved if her body had been found soon enough, but she wasn’t . . . in any case, she died from lack of oxygen, which is what medical examiners call asphyxiation.”

“Ew.” I gave an involuntary shudder, thinking of Lucia’s face, which, though usually twisted in anger when I’d seen it, had still been cherubically round. She had a mouth that, unlike my stepnieces, was shaped exactly like the rosebuds in the bouquet Paul had sent me, only smaller and pink, not white.

“That’s a horrible way to die,” I said.

“I agree. But I doubt the girl suffered long, if at all. An injury like that would have instantly paralyzed her.” He heaved a little shudder himself. “And the girl’s soul never revealed herself to me, asking for help . . . or for justice. Apparently she’s chosen to reveal herself to you, now, though, hasn’t she, Susannah?”

“She tried to kill me. That’s the opposite of asking for help, Father D.”

“Spirits aren’t always aware that we have the ability to help them,” Father Dominic said. “And even then, they’re often sometimes too frightened—or stubborn—to accept our guidance. Jesse, you’ll recall, wouldn’t have dreamt of accepting your aid while he was in spirit form. He was the one rushing to your defense. And yet, in the end, it was you who—”