“Gorgeous!” Jess exclaimed, just as Roland whistled. Lidia, whose mouth was full, gave her two thumbs-up, and Dad applauded. Sam squinted at Mi Jin for a few seconds before his expression cleared.
“Ah,” he said. “You shaved your head, right?”
Mi Jin snickered. “Keen observation as always, Sherlock.” She walked over to our table and squatted between Jamie and me. “Looks like I’ve rendered Hailey speechless, but I’m not sure if that means she loves it or hates it.”
I glanced at Hailey and giggled. Her eyes were bugged out and she was digging her fingers into her cheeks, her mouth open in a silent scream.
“That means she hates it,” said Jamie immediately, which broke Hailey out of her trance.
“I do not,” she hissed, punching her brother’s arm. “It’s just . . . I . . . why did you do that? Not that I don’t like it!” she added hastily when the rest of us started laughing.
“I was telling Kat the other day that I shaved my head in high school,” Mi Jin explained. “I realized I couldn’t even remember why I ever let it grow back.” She plucked a piece of bacon off Jamie’s plate. “Plus it’s super hot here, so.”
“I think it looks great,” said Oscar, and Jamie and I nodded in agreement.
Hailey tilted her head. “I do like it,” she said at last, her tone decisive. “It looks really . . . soft. Can I feel it? Or is that weird?”
“Asking someone if you can rub their head?” Jamie asked. “No, that’s not weird at all.” Hailey stuck her tongue out at him, and Mi Jin grinned.
“Maybe later when you don’t have sticky syrup hands.”
She stood up and started to head over to the buffet. Hailey leaned closer, lowering her voice. “I can’t believe she did that!” she whispered. “I wonder what all the fans will say when they see her in the next episode?”
Glancing over at Mi Jin, I smiled. “I’m pretty sure she doesn’t care what they think,” I told Hailey before digging back into my pancakes. Suddenly, this morning didn’t seem so bad after all.
Hailey led the way into the woods behind the church, occasionally stopping to consult the pages in her hand. Inés had given us an extra copy of Brunilda’s journal entries, all translated into English, and Hailey had immediately gone through and found all the ones with a description of Brunilda’s favorite tree. She seemed to be taking charge of finding it, which was fine by me. Inés had also made a copy of Professor Guzmán’s photo of the church’s convent in 1891. He’d circled Brunilda’s face: long and narrow like his, with a thin, pointed nose.
Jamie and I walked with Abril, who was filling us in on everything she knew about Professor Guzmán’s experiment. “Inés has been his student for three years,” Abril explained. “He’s the only psychology professor at the university who is interested in telepathy, precognition, things like that. Last year when his grandmother died, he found this trunk in her attic with Brunilda Cano’s belongings and personal records, and he learned she was a nun at this church.”
“So Brunilda wasn’t famous?” I asked.
“Famous?” Abril frowned. “No, she was just a nun.”
“No, I mean her ghost.”
“Most of the haunted places we visit are local legends,” Jamie added. “All the locals know all about the ghosts and their stories.”
Abril shook her head. “Everyone always said the catacombs were haunted, but no one had ever heard of Brunilda until Professor Guzmán started these séances.”
Oscar and Thiago followed us, lagging behind a little bit. It sounded like Thiago was trying to teach Spanish to Oscar. Or maybe Oscar was trying to teach him Portuguese. I couldn’t really tell.
“As catacumbas são assombrados.”
“Assombrados?”
“It means haunted. Haunted? Com fantasmas?”
“Ah . . . embrujado.”
Abril sighed loudly. “You should be working on your English, like I am!” she called over her shoulder. “He is very self-conscious about it,” she added to Jamie and me. “But he’ll study abroad the year after next like I did. He needs to practice.” She yelled the last part, and behind us, Thiago muttered something that sounded like “mandona.” Abril rolled her eyes as he and Oscar snickered.
“I don’t care if you think I’m bossy,” she said haughtily, shooting him a glare. “You know I’m right.”
“All right, we’ll practice English,” Oscar said. I glanced back as he pointed at a spindly-looking tree. “Tree,” he deadpanned, and Thiago started laughing again.
“I see it!” Up ahead, Hailey broke into a run. Our narrow path opened into a small clearing, and a massive willow tree stood in the center, leaves swaying gently in the breeze. I stopped, setting my Elapse to video mode and holding it a few inches from my face. On the display screen, Hailey sprinted toward the tree, ponytail flying. Jamie leaned closer to watch. Maybe a little closer than necessary. Not that I was complaining about that.
“That’ll be a nice opening shot,” he said, his breath tickling my cheek. I nodded, pretty sure that if I tried to respond, it would come out as a squeak.
Jamie stuck by my side as I filmed the others setting up the Ouija board. His arm kept accidentally brushing against mine, and once when I tripped over a root, he grabbed my wrist and held onto it several seconds after I’d regained my balance. The resulting swooping sensation in my stomach, combined with my now-typical anxiety that came with filming, made me feel like I was on a roller coaster that was sort of fun but also sort of terrifying. By the time Oscar was ready for the introduction, my hands were sweating and a soundtrack of thump-thump, thump-thump was playing loudly in my ears.
I tried to hold the camera steady as he talked about Brunilda, but something was wrong. A buzzing noise filled my
