Chapter One

Ryan Ross wrestled in bed with a wrinkled, green quilt.

A tall, black figure entered the house and crept into the room and a ghostly, white figure followed it.

The white house in Aurora, Illinois settled like a decaying tree. The refrigerator squeaked and the washing machine in the basement leaked. Peeling paint flaked on the walls and a draft seeped through the windows. The heater vibrated with a buzz.

Ryan saw the black figure standing at the foot of his bed and gulped. It disappeared and he covered his head with the quilt, falling asleep. The white figure hovered over him.

---

The clock radio beeped the alarm on the bedside table. Ryan switched it to a radio station and it played a Hard Rock song. He saw the white figure over him and gasped. It vanished.

His mom, Miss Aldridge slept, facing the wall with the sheet at her neck and the bedroom door ajar. Ryan rushed in the room and she turned around. Her pupils widened and her mouth twisted gravely. Ryan stepped back. Then she disappeared and he ran out, closing the door fast.

"Ryan, lower your radio, please," called Miss Aldridge from the kitchen.

Ryan slammed the bathroom door.

Grace knocked abruptly and he opened it. Blonde hair grew in a curly mess on her head and she fussed with it, holding a towel. She peered at him grumpily and he skipped out.

He went in his room cautiously, but nothing showed itself.

---

At the kitchen table, Ryan picked at his fried eggs and toast and Grace stirred her hot cereal.

"Are you sure you don't want your dad to bring you to school today?" asked Miss Aldridge. "He'll be here soon."

"No," said Ryan flatly.

"You know you hate the bus."

"I don't," he grumbled.

"Your dad's trying to help you."

"I don't care."

"I'd take the ride if I were you," she said.

"Mom . . . I saw a black thing last night and a ghost - "

"Where?"

"In my room - I went in your room. Something looked like you and had weird eyes and a gross mouth and - "

"You went in my room?"

"I just wanted - "

"You don't belong in there."

"I know. I - "

"Ryan, you have to respect the rules. I don't know what you saw, but I'll talk to your dad about it."

"What's he going to do?"

"Bless the house - I have white sage in the oven cabinet."

"Is something evil here?"

"I don't know."

"What does it want?"

"To frighten us - that's all."

---

Ryan closed the front door and a large, school bus headed down the street. His dad, Mr. Ross parked his silver sedan at the sidewalk. Grace got in and he lowered the passenger window.

"Hop in, Ryan!" he called.

Ryan shook his head and rushed to the bus. The old driver stopped suddenly and opened the door.

"The stop's at the corner!" he snapped.

"You're early," said Ryan. He headed up the steps quickly and the driver jerked the bus forward. Ryan lost his balance, grabbing the top of the seat.

"Dumb, red hair like a clown," muttered the driver under his breath.

Ryan eyed him sorely and sat down, glancing at his reflection in the window. His red hair reminded him of red leaves.

The bus stopped a few streets away and Amy Thorne and Jordan Billings got on it, sitting across from him.

"Hi, Ryan," said Jordan. "Do we have a quiz in Algebra today?"

"No, next week."

"I thought your dad brought you to school," he said.

"He does," said Ryan.

"Is he sick?"

"No."

"What's wrong?"

"He's got lunch lady-itis," said Ryan.

"What's that?" asked Jordan.

"Nevermind."

---

The bus pulled into the parking lot at Harvey Middle School. Ryan filed off of it with the other students and Mr. Ross blocked his path.

"What . . . you're too old now to get a ride with your old man?" he barked.

Ryan pushed past him, but he yanked his jacket back. A crowd of students gathered in front of the school fixed on the scene.

"You're being stupid, Ryan!" said Mr. Ross angrily.

Ryan pulled his jacket back and dropped his backpack. The books fell out and scattered across the pavement. He grabbed them and the principal parted the crowd, looking at Ryan curiously.

"I'm not done with you," said Mr. Ross sternly. He got in the car and drove off, squealing the tires.

The principal gave Ryan a cold stare, but he ignored him, weaving through the crowd irritably. He put his backpack in his locker and hurried to Homeroom.

Pablo Estes walked in and sat down in the front. He turned to Ryan.

"Sorry about yesterday," he said. "Travel Tow made us wait. It got late and my dad got tired."

"Forget it," said Ryan glumly. "My dad called your house, but your mom said you left."

"Next time," said Pablo.

"Hey, Ryan." Jamal Klein sat across from him. "I had fun yesterday."

"Cool."

Sloan Olsen sat in front of Ryan and lifted a pair of large eyeglasses up his noise bridge, but they slipped down.

"Hey," he said. "Did I leave my glasses on your couch last night?"

"No," said Ryan.

"They're in my mom's car," said Jamal. "I forgot them."

"Give them to me after school."

"Yeah, okay," said Jamal.

"Thanks."

Sloan opened his drawing pad, shading something on the page with an art pencil. Then he looked at Ryan keenly.

Ryan smirked and peeked behind him. Shantel Sawyer wrote something in her notebook madly. Then she looked up at him with brown, doe eyes, covering it with her hand. She closed the notebook with a smack, tucking the brown hair that passed her shoulders behind her ear.

---

In Algebra, Mr. Bailey wrote three problems on the board and Ryan solved them faster than he did. He handed out marked quizzes and Ryan earned a perfect score.

"Nice job, Ryan," he said.

Shantel eyed him, two seats away.

---

In the school cafeteria, Ryan sat a table with Sloan, Jamal and Pablo. Sloan shared his drawing with them and Ryan looked pretty realistic. Sloan tore it out of the pad and gave it to him. Pablo slipped him a wrapped gift and a tiny, chocolate bar.

"Happy Birthday," he said.

"Thanks," said Ryan, ripping the blue, wrapping paper and opening the CD, Avalonia by Dar Tenian. "I love them."

"I know," said Pablo.

Jamal wrote "13" in his notebook with a black pen like a calligrapher and drew a caricature of Ryan blowing out thirteen candles on a birthday cake with party favors flying around it. He flashed it at him.

"Can I have that?" asked Ryan.

"Sure." Jamal tore it out. "I got skills too," he said.

Amy Thorne and Jordan Billings sat at the table and Amy gave Ryan an oatmeal cookie bagged individually at the bakery at Foodcart.

"Hi, Ryan," she said. "That's for helping me in Algebra."

"No problem - thanks," said Ryan shyly.

"Yeah," said Jordan. "History is so much easier."

Luke Allman sat at a table alone, reading an English assignment while he ate.

"Where's Chase and Troy?" asked Jamal.

"They're home sick today," said Jordan.

Sloan ripped the plastic wrap off of a bologna sandwich and wolfed it down. Ryan took a thermos from a paper bag and Sloan watched him hungrily.

Miss Aldridge poured hot, vegetable soup in the thermos, the kind with pasta, alphabet letters and Ryan slurped it slowly. He scooped up the letters on the spoon and they spelled a word:

"D I E"

Ryan blinked and checked the letters again . . . "P I F". He dropped the spoon on the table.

"What's wrong?" asked Sloan.

"I'm not hungry," said Ryan nervously.

"You're not going to eat that?"

"Do you want it?"

"If you don't," said Sloan, grinning. "My mom forgot my bag of chips . . . or she ate them."

"Take it."

Sloan swiped the spoon and ate the soup. Ryan devoured the chocolate bar and chewed the cookie. Three older boys on the table across the way scoffed at them.

"What are you two . . . dating?" said Kent Darby. Ryan Terry laughed loudly.

"Hey, kid," called Wes Cabral. "Want my banana?"

Sloan paused irately and the boys bursted with laughter. Ryan clenched his fist.

---

After school, Ryan hurried down the corridor, ignoring yellow notices taped on the walls.

He dashed to the parking lot and waited at the bus door impatiently. The driver left it closed, reading the yellow paper. Ryan knocked and he pulled the lever open halfway. Ryan pushed the door aside and paused.

He saw a vision in color in his mind of the bus stuck down a steep ditch with the driver slumped over the wheel. He hesitated.

"Get on!" said the driver. "You're in the way!"

"I forgot my homework," said Ryan anxiously.

"Go get it! I'm not waiting for you!"

Ryan jumped past a younger boy, just about knocking him over and ran into the school foyer. He leaned against the wall, waiting there a while.

---

He went outside to a half-empty, parking lot. Four older boys lingered around a gray car. Ryan shuffled by them, lifting his backpack up.

"Miss the bus?" asked the boy in the jean jacket. The three other boys snickered and Ryan hurried down a side street.

"Hey, kid," called the boy in the black, leather jacket. "You got a ghost following you."

Ryan turned around. The four boys hopped in the car and it zoomed out of the parking lot, spinning up dust.

Ryan walked faster, checking behind him. The ghostly, white figure drifted in the air. Ryan gulped and it disappeared.

---

He walked to the library and a red, sports car slowed down beside him. Ryan glanced at it and it stopped.

He climbed the stone steps, finding a guy at the front desk with blue-dyed hair in his eyes, reading a hardcover book like he owned the place.

"Excuse me," said Ryan quietly. "I need to find a book about a ghost that follows you and looks like your mother, but your mother's not dead."

He removed his blue-rimmed glasses apprehensively. "We don't have a book like that and the info on-line is crap."

"What should I do?" asked Ryan nervously.

"Get something else."

"Like what?"

"Like a book about an entity or something."

"An entity? What does it want?"

"To possess you."

"For what?"

"Depends. Is it following you now?"

"No."

He smirked. "If it is, strange stuff's about to happen."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see."

"Are you serious?"

He frowned and nodded.

"Where can I get an entity book?"

"You can order one on-line, but they're not cheap."

"Thanks," said Ryan disappointedly.

Ryan left, hurrying past a man in the lobby with stylish, red hair and a long overcoat.

He hurried to the sidewalk.

---

A police car blocked the main street with flashing, red lights and two ambulances and a firetruck parked beside a wooden fence.

Broken pieces of the fence covered the area and a crowd of onlookers gathered around. Ryan ducked past the police car.

"Hey, kid!" called an officer. "You can't go there!"

Ryan hustled in-between two women and sneaked to the front. The officer pushed through the crowd, reaching for Ryan, but it didn't matter. He saw everything.

At the bottom of a steep hill, a school bus rested on a slant. Firefighters smashed the windows and pulled students out, attending to them on the grass.

Paramedics dragged the driver out, the one from his bus and gave him CPR. The officer caught his arm.

"Let's go," he said, dragging him away, but Ryan stared forward.

Two more paramedics took an unresponsive girl and boy out of the bus and placed them on the ground, covering them with a white sheet. Ryan gasped.

Amy Thorne and Jordan Billings lay there dead.

He caught a glimpse of the tall, black figure standing behind him and didn't remember what he said to the officer.