The Presence by Eve Bunting Page A

was nonsense, I was remembering the way he appeared and disappeared, the way this Noah could talk to those who had "passed over," the way he knew so many secrets.
    I went slowly downstairs, holding tight to the banister.
    Maureen and Rita and Arthur oohed and aahed over the cards. I told them that yes, I'd seen Sue in person, and yes, she was just as big and ferocious as they imagined. I was having trouble speaking. My mouth felt full of cotton.
    "If you smell burning, don't worry," Grandma told me cheerfully. "The first batch of cookies was fine. The second, we can scrape."
    She made tea, and I helped her set out her pretty china cups and fill a plate from the first batch, and we sat eating and drinking, talking happy holiday talk. I nodded and smiled and hoped I looked sane, while the lights on Grandma's little tree blinked white and the poinsettias by the window glowed with their red Christmas glow.
    "Did you like the flowers I gave you?" he'd asked. Noah! Noah the ghost?
    Upstairs, waiting for me, waiting for the night, was the diary. Nothing in the world seemed real.
    Our guests left at five-thirty, complimenting Grandma on her cookies and her oolong tea. We stood in the doorway to wave goodbye.
    When the phone in the kitchen rang, Grandma picked it up. "Hello," she said. "Hello." Quickly she smashed the receiver down, scowling at it. "That's the third 'nobody there' call since this afternoon," she said. "What's the matter with these people?"
    I knew it was Noah. He was wondering why I hadn't come. He was going to tell me how disappointed Kirsty was. Oh, Kirsty, what am I going to do? I'm scared to death of Noah now. But what if he can put me in touch with you? If there's a chance, I have to try. Wait for me, Kirsty. I won't walk away from you again.

    The Presence sat in the church office, hunched over in Rita's chair. Only three days till Catherine went home. No time to waste. What had happened today? Her grandmother made plans and she couldn't get away? Or had something alerted her? He couldn't think what it might be.
    He glared at the phone. Three times he'd called, and there'd been only the grandmother. He'd had the awful thought that maybe Catherine had been called back to Chicago unexpectedly, that he'd lost her. What else would keep her from Kirsty?
    He tapped a pencil on the desk. She'd come. Almost all of them did in the end. She'd come.

Twelve
    Collin would be here at seven. Invited by Grandma, trying to cheer me. If she only knew how much I wished he wasn't coming. How could I talk to him, be pleasant, eat dinner, behave as if my life and I were both sane?
    It was six o'clock. I helped Grandma set the table with her pretty red Christmasy placemats and dark green napkins.
    She slid a lasagna out of the refrigerator and peeled off the plastic wrap. "No time for real cooking at Christmas," she said. "But I bought this at Trader Joe's, so it will be good."
    "And you have the cookies for dessert." I was proud of myself for remembering that and being with it enough to say it.
    When she opened the oven door, the heat blasting at my face made my stomach roil. How was I going to get through tonight?
    I told Grandma I needed to change and rushed up to my room, straight to the drawer, to the diary. I couldn't leave it alone. Standing there, I read.
    Oh, God! Oh, help me, someone! I am lost. I have to put what happened on paper because there is no person on earth whom I can tell, who would believe me.

    The writing was a child's scrawl, up and down the page, lines crooked and running into each other. Fear was in every word.
    My chest hurt, and I rubbed at it with my fist.

    Yesterday, he said he would take me to his room. But I couldn't
go
to St. Matthew's because my mother had arranged for both of us to attend a recital in the music room of the Green Hotel. The cellist is a friend of my grandparents'. I couldn't get out of it. And I couldn't get word to Noah.
    So today I went to St. Matthew's to look for him. There is a