Still, our little visit hadn't been particularly enlightening so far. I had learned, for instance, that according to the lines in my palm, I am going to grow up to have a challenging job in the field of medical research (Yeah! That'll be the day). Cee Cee, meanwhile, is going to be a movie star, and Adam an astronaut.

Seriously. An astronaut.

I was, I admit, a little jealous of their future careers, which were clearly a great deal more exciting than my own, but I tried hard to control my envy.

What I'd given up trying to control - and Cee Cee apparently had as well - was Adam. He had told Aunt Pru, before I could stop him, about my "dream," and now the poor woman was trying - pro bono, mind you - to summon Deirdre Fiske's spirit using tarot cards and a lot of humming.

Only it did not appear to be working because every time she started to turn the cards over, she kept coming up with the same one.

The ninth key.

This was, apparently, upsetting to her. Shaking her head, Aunt Pru - that's what she'd told me to call her - scooped all the cards back into a pile, shuffled them, and then, closing her eyes, pulled one from the middle of the deck, and laid it, face up, for us to see.

Then she opened her eyes, looked down at it, and went, "Again! This doesn't make any sense."

She wasn't kidding. The idea of anyone summoning a ghost with a deck of cards made no sense whatsoever … to me, at least. I couldn't even summon them by standing there screaming their names - something I'd tried, believe me - and I'm a mediator. My job is to communicate with the undead.

But ghosts aren't dogs. They don't come if you call them. Take my dad, for instance. How many times had I wanted - even needed - him? He'd shown up, all right: three, four weeks later. Ghosts are way irresponsible for the most part.

But I couldn't exactly explain to Cee Cee's aunt that what she was doing was a huge waste of time . . . and that while she was sitting there doing it, there was a cat trying to eat his way out of my book bag in Adam's car.

Oh, and that a guy who might or might not have been a vampire - but was certainly responsible for the disappearances of quite a number of people - was running around loose. I could only just sit there with this big stupid smile on my face, pretending to be enjoying myself, while really I was itching to get home and on the phone with Father D, so we could figure out what we were going to do about Red Beaumont.

"Oh, dear," Aunt Pru said. She was very pretty, Cee Cee's aunt Pru. An albino like her niece, her eyes were the color of violets. She wore a flowing sundress of the same shade. The contrast her long white hair made against the purple of her dress was startling - and cool. Cee Cee, I knew, was probably going to look just like her aunt Pru someday, once she got rid of the braces and puppy fat, that is.

Which was probably why Cee Cee couldn't stand her.

"What can this mean?" Aunt Pru muttered to herself. "The hermit. The hermit."

There appeared, from what I could see, to be a hermit on the card Aunt Pru kept turning over and over. Not of the crab variety, either, but the old-man-living-in-a-cave type. I didn't know what a hermit had to do with Mrs. Fiske, either, but one thing I did know: I was bored stupid.

"One more time," Aunt Pru said, sending a cautious glance in Cee Cee's direction. Cee Cee had made it clear that we didn't have all day. I was the one who needed to get home most, of course. I had an Ackerman dinner to contend with. Kung pao chicken night. If I was late, my mom was going to kill me.

"Um," I said. "Ms. Webb?"

"Aunt Pru, darling."

"Right. Aunt Pru. May I use your phone?"

"Of course." Aunt Pru didn't even glance at me. She was too busy channeling.

I wandered out of the darkened room and went out into the hallway. There was an old-fashioned rotary phone on a little table there. I dialed my own number - after a brief struggle to remember it since I'd only had it for a few weeks - and when Dopey picked up, I asked him to tell my mother that I hadn't forgotten about dinner and was on my way home.

Dopey not very graciously informed me that he was on the other line and that because he was not my social secretary, and had no intention of taking any messages for me, I should call back later.

"Who are you talking to?" I asked. "Debbie, your love slave?"

Dopey responded by hanging up on me. Some people have no sense of humor.

I put down the receiver and was standing there looking at this zodiac calendar and wondering if I was in some kind of celestial good-luck zone - considering what had happened with Tad and all - when someone standing right beside me said, in an irritated voice, "Well? What do you want?"

I jumped nearly a foot. I swear, I've been doing this all my life, but I just can't get used to it. I would so rather have some other secret power - like the ability to do long division in my head - than this mediator crap, I swear.

I spun around, and there she was, standing in Aunt Pru's entranceway, looking cranky in a gardening hat and gloves.

She was not the same woman who'd been waking me up at night. They were similar body types, little and slender, with the same pixyish haircut, but this woman was easily in her sixties.

"Well?" She eyed me. "I don't have all day. What did you call me for?"

I stared at the woman in wonder. The truth was, I hadn't called her. I hadn't done anything, except stand there and wonder if Tad was still going to like me when Mercury retrograded into Aquarius.

"Mrs. Fiske?" I whispered.

"Yes, that's me." The old lady looked me up and down. "You are the one who called me, aren't you?"

"Um." I glanced back toward the room where I could still hear Aunt Pru saying, apparently to herself, since neither Cee Cee nor Adam could have understood what she was talking about, "But the ninth key has no bearing …"

I turned back to Mrs. Fiske. "I guess so," I said.

Mrs. Fiske looked me up and down. It was clear she didn't much like what she was seeing. "Well?" she said. "What is it?"

Where to begin? Here was a woman who'd disappeared, and been presumed dead, for almost half as long as I'd been alive. I glanced back at Aunt Pru and the others, just to make sure they weren't looking in my direction, and then whispered, "I just need to know, Mrs. Fiske … Mr. Beaumont. He killed you, didn't he?"

Mrs. Fiske suddenly stopped looking so crabby. Her eyes, which were very blue, fixed on mine. She said, in a shocked voice, "My God. My God, finally … someone knows. Someone finally knows."

I reached out to lay a reassuring hand upon her arm. "Yes, Mrs. Fiske," I said. "I know. And I'm going to stop him from hurting anybody else."

Mrs. Fiske shrugged my hand off and blinked at me. "You?" She still looked stunned, but now in a different way.

I realized how when she burst out laughing.

"You're going to stop him?" she cackled. "You're … you're a baby!"

"I'm no baby," I assured her. "I'm a mediator."

"A mediator?" To my surprise, Mrs. Fiske threw back her head and laughed harder. "A mediator. Oh, well, that makes it all better, doesn't it?"

I wanted to tell her I didn't really care for her tone, but Mrs. Fiske didn't give me a chance.

"And you think you can stop Beaumont?" she demanded. "Honey, you've got a lot to learn."

I didn't think this was very polite. I said, "Look, lady, I may be young, but I know what I'm doing. Now, just tell me where he hid your body, and - "

"Are you insane?" Mrs. Fiske finally stopped laughing. Now she shook her head. "There's nothing left of me. Beaumont's no amateur, you know. He made sure there weren't any mistakes. And there weren't. You won't find a scrap of evidence to implicate him. Believe me. The guy's a monster. A real bloodsucker." Then her mouth hardened. "Though no worse, I suppose, than my own kids. Selling my land to that leech! Listen, you. You're a mediator. Give my kids this message for me: tell them I hope they burn in - "

"Hey, Suze." Cee Cee suddenly appeared in the hallway. "The witch has given up. She has to consult her guru, 'cause she keeps coming up bust."

I threw a frantic look at Mrs. Fiske. Wait! I still hadn't had a chance to ask her how she'd died! Was Red Beaumont really a vampire? Had he sucked all the life out of her? Did she mean he was literally a bloodsucking leech?

But it was too late. Cee Cee, still coming toward me, walked right through what looked - and felt - to me like a little old lady in a gardening hat and gloves. And the little old lady shimmered indignantly.

Don't, I wanted to scream. Don't go!

"Ew," Cee Cee said with a little shudder as she threw off the last of Mrs. Fiske's clinging aura. "Come on. Let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps."

I never did find out what Mrs. Fiske's message to her kids was - though I had a bit of an idea. The old lady, with a last, disgusted look at me, disappeared.

Just as Aunt Pru came into the hallway, looking apologetic.

"I'm so sorry, Suzie," she said. "I really tried, but the Santa Anas have been particularly strong this year, and so there's been a lot of interference in the spiritual pathways I normally utilize."

Maybe that explained how I had managed to summon the spirit of Mrs. Fiske. Could I do it again, I wondered, and this time remember to ask exactly how Red Beaumont had killed her?

Adam, as we headed back toward his car, looked immensely pleased with himself.

"Well, Suze?" he said, as he held open the passenger side door for Cee Cee and me. "You ever in your life met anybody like that?"