Yesterday and Today Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Alone at last.

  Upstairs in my room, I sat on the floor next to my bed. My hands shook a little as I stared down at the diary. My mother’s diary. My mother, who I had never met because she died giving birth to me. Now I held in my hands the diary she kept when she was my age. I was finally going to “meet” her . . . at least, sort of.

  Earlier in the day, my best friend, Lily, and I had found the diary hidden in a secret closet in a room I usually refer to as “the blue bedroom” because of the blue walls in there. But now Lily had gone home. She’d known without me having to tell her that I wanted to be alone with my mom’s diary. I shared just about everything with Lily, but this was different.

  I set it down gently in my lap. Brushed it lightly with my fingertips. Took a deep breath.

  “Whatcha got there?” demanded a loud voice in my doorway.

  I whirled around to see who it was. Could it be my mother?

  It was a spirit. But not my mother’s.

  Perhaps I should explain. I can see spirits. People who have died. I’ve been able to see them for as long as I can remember. The house I live in—the old Victorian house in Stellamar, New Jersey, which belonged to my great-grandmother, Lady Azura—is filled with spirits. My dad and I had moved here two summers ago. At first I didn’t know that Lady Azura was my great-grandmother. I’d just thought she was some kooky lady who told fortunes and read tea leaves. She was one of several secrets that had been kept from me for a long time. But I’d grown to love Lady Azura, and by the time I found out she was my great-grandmother, I was thrilled about it.

  The spirit standing in my doorway wasn’t one I was familiar with. Not one of our regulars, as I had come to think of them. We had several that inhabited the house, and I knew them all. This was an older woman. She had a lot of makeup on, and her hair was all done up like she’d just stepped out of the salon.

  I slipped the diary off my lap and nudged it under my bed. Then I stood up and walked over to her.

  “Can I help you with something?” I asked, trying to be polite when in reality I was really annoyed by the interruption.

  She wandered into my room, checking out my stuff. I bristled as her semitransparent hands touched my things.

  “Don’t suppose so.” She shrugged, examining the photo of my mom on my bedside table. “I was just bored. Name’s Shirley. My son, Harry, and his wife are downstairs. They’re trying to get me to show up and tell them where I hid my will. I think that’s all they care about. And I’ll tell them. But in my own sweet time.” She laughed mischievously. “It’s much more interesting up here.”

  That explained it, then. My great-grandmother was a fortune-teller. She could conjure spirits. People flocked here for her services.

  Lady Azura must be holding a séance with clients downstairs. She must have summoned this spirit for them. I had to get rid of her. Politely, of course.

  “Thanks so much for dropping in,” I said. “I am sure Harry and his wife can’t wait for you to appear to them, though.”

  “Pah!” she said, waving her hand. “I doubt it. He’s a good boy, my Harry. Not sure what he was thinking marrying That Girl, but then, he didn’t exactly consult me before he popped the question.” Her voice got lower as she started fiddling with my camera. I think maybe she was getting a little emotional. “I did notice that his wife was wearing my butterfly pin. It’s an old thing, probably not worth very much anymore. I guess Harry gave it to her after I died. I heard her tell the fortune-teller that it belonged to me and how happy she was to have it. It sort of seemed like she meant it . . . but I think she must think it’s valuable and that’s why she likes it.”

  “Actually, I don’t think that’s true. I can sense that Harry and his wife want you to show yourself. I think they really miss you.” To be honest, I wasn’t getting much of a vibe from downstairs at all, but I was still pretty sure that what I said was true. And she seemed pleased to hear it. I had learned from Lady Azura that spirits really aren’t all that different from the living. They hold grudges and make mistakes just like people do. Sometimes they just need to be set on the right track. “I sense that they’re waiting for you, Shirley, and that you must be very important to both of them or else they wouldn’t be here.”

  She stood up, tugging at her dress and patting her hair. “You can sense all that? Do you have the gift, like the lady downstairs?”

  “Well, I am her great-granddaughter,” I replied. Even I could hear the pride in my voice when I said it.

  Shirley regarded me carefully for a moment or two, as if she was trying to make up her mind about me. “All right, then,” she said finally. “I shall go join them.” And she shimmered into nothingness.

  I waited a minute more. I didn’t want to be interrupted again. But my room was quiet. I sat down and pulled the diary out from under my bed.

  It was light blue, with a puffy kind of cover, sort of like a photo album. Slightly scuffed in places. The word DIARY, embossed in gold lettering, was the only thing on the cover. The corners were bent in a little, as though it had been dropped once or twice.

  I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm my racing nerves. This was my first real glimpse into my mother’s life, her world. I’d been so eager to meet her, but her spirit hadn’t shown itself to me. I’d found out about the diary from another spirit, that of an old sailor named Duggan. Duggan was one of our regulars, and when he was here, he was usually in the blue bedroom. He’d told me about the diary. And then I’d dreamed about where it was hidden. Only Lily and I knew about the diary. I hadn’t told my dad or Lady Azura about it. Yet. For now, I wanted it to be my secret. Something I shared with my mother. Just the two of us.

  With a trembling hand, I opened to the first page.

  Girlish handwriting. Purple ink. Fat, loopy letters. The first entry was dated August 7, 1984.

  She would have just turned twelve. The age I was when I first moved to Stellamar. She’d probably received the diary for her twelfth birthday.

  A thought struck me. What if she only wrote in the diary for a few days or weeks and then got bored and forgot all about it? That would be really disappointing. But then again, I guessed a small glimpse into my mom’s life was better than nothing.

  I fanned the pages. There was a lot of writing. She’d stuck with it. The entries came to a stop about two-thirds of the way through the book. Some days had short entries, just a sentence or two. Other days went several pages, the writing growing more urgent and slanted, as though she’d written while upset or excited. I resisted the urge to read these more interesting-looking entries. I’d start from the beginning and read it all in order. I turned back to the first page.

  And then my phone vibrated, telling me I had a text.

  In exasperation, I pulled my phone from my back pocket. I was going to shut it off, something I almost never ever did, but I didn’t want to be interrupted. Then I noticed who the text was from: Lily.

  SORRY. I KNOW YOU’RE BUSY WITH YOU KNOW WHAT. BUT PLEASE CALL ME ASAP. IT’S MUCHO IMPORTANT!

  I quickly texted back.

  OK. WILL CALL SOON.

  Then I turned off my phone.

  I looked down at the diary. I couldn’t wait to meet her.
My mom. Natalie, as she was known to everyone else.

  I read the first line . . .

  Dear Diary,

  . . . and then everything got a little blurry and I was plunged into a vision.

  Chapter 2

  A girl. About twelve.

  She looked exactly as she had looked in my dream. But this vision was much more real than a dream. I felt like I could reach out and touch her.

  Her long blond hair was pushed back with a wide headband. She sat on a bed cross-legged, her narrow shoulders hunched as she scribbled away in a blue book. The diary.

  This girl was my mother.

  I stared at her, taking huge gulps of breath, like I was trying to breathe her in. Study her. Memorize every detail. Long, thick lashes. A sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Long, skinny arms and legs. She looked like me. Or I guess I should say, I looked like her.

  She was wearing an oversize red shirt that fell off one shoulder, a pink tank peeking out at the top. Her denim cutoff shorts were rolled up at the bottom. I think her clothes would have been considered stylish back in the 1980s.

  The clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly. She was completely absorbed in her writing.

  It was definitely summer. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the drone of a lawn mower. I darted a look around. I was in the blue bedroom, where Lily and I had found the diary. This was the room my mom used to stay in when she visited Lady Azura. On the dresser was a huge old-fashioned boom box, the kind people used to lug around, blasting music. Clothes were flung across open drawers, draped over chairs, lying in crumpled heaps on the floor. I smiled. I’d learned something I hadn’t known before. My mom was kind of messy!

  As she continued to write, I moved over to the desk near the window. There were drawings strewn around on it. Charcoal and pastel renderings of the view outside. A bird on a branch. The ocean at sunrise. They were good. Duggan had told me she was an artist. Of course, I knew she had grown up to become a photographer, but it was cool learning that she was into different kinds of art. Just like me.

  There was a knock at the door, and then the person just barged in without waiting for my mom to say whether it was okay to come in.

  The girl who entered looked to be about my mom’s age. She was really small, like my friend Avery. I wondered if she was a gymnast like Avery was. She was dressed similarly to my mom—a baggy T-shirt over a tank, baggy denim shorts with the rolled-up bottoms, and clompy wood-soled sandals with a red leather strap across the top. Her hair was long, curly, pushed back with two combs. On her lips she wore frosty pink lipstick that I thought looked pretty silly but I’m guessing was considered cool back then.

  “You ready to rock ’n’ roll, Nat?” asked the girl. “My mom just dropped me off and is running to the drugstore. She’ll be back to take us to the mall in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Almost ready,” my mom replied, moving to the dresser. She uncapped a fat tube of lip balm and carefully applied it to her lips. The smell of watermelons filled the room, and I realized it was my mom’s lip balm.

  “So, like, how long are you staying here?” asked the girl.

  My mom picked up a small nylon wallet and shoved it into her back pocket. “Just a few more days. My mom will be back on Thursday.”

  I remembered that my mom’s mother, Diana—my own grandmother—would have been recently divorced at this point. I remembered my dad telling me that my mom and grandmother had moved to a house on the outskirts of Stellamar for just a year or so while my grandmother pulled herself together after her divorce, before they moved to Connecticut. I had asked my dad why they hadn’t just moved in with Lady Azura, since her house was so big, and my dad had explained that my grandmother didn’t have the best relationship with Lady Azura.

  “I bet you can’t wait to leave,” the girl said in a snide voice. “This old house gives me the creeps. I don’t know how you can stay here!”

  I watched my mom carefully, waiting for her to say something to defend Lady Azura’s house. Her cheeks got red, so I knew the comment bothered her on some level, but she didn’t say anything. Instead she just changed the subject.

  “So, Julie,” she said in a fake cheerful voice, as if her grandmother’s home hadn’t just been insulted. “I was thinking about what to wear for the first day of school, and I—” She stopped suddenly.

  Wailing. Weeping. The sounds were coming from the pink bedroom next door. I knew who it was. A spirit. The spirit of a young mother who’d lived a long time ago. She had lost her child to a bad illness. When I’d first moved into my great-grandmother’s house, I’d heard the wailing spirit a lot. Nowadays she didn’t cry quite so much, because she and I had figured out together how she could be reunited with her little boy, at least some of the time. But she was crying now.

  My mother could hear the spirit.

  The realization struck me all at once. I watched in a daze as my mom walked over to the dresser and snapped on the huge boom box. Loud music blared into the room.

  She was trying to drown out the sound of the spirit.

  It was clear to me, if not to my mother, that Julie could not hear the spirit, but she was looking at my mom a little strangely. I knew that look well. I had gotten it from my own friends plenty of times when I had done something random in a panic to cover up the presence of a spirit. Then Julie motioned to the window. “My mom is here. Finally! Let’s go!”

  Through a fog, I heard my father calling me. The vision ended. I was back in my room, staring down at the loopy purple handwriting in my mother’s diary.

  . . . so Julie and I went to the mall. I bought a cool new shirt and a headband with a bow to wear to the dance.

  I can’t wait till Mom comes back to get me. I don’t like it here. Julie’s right . . . it’s creepy. I don’t know what the deal is with all the weird sounds, but I’m just glad Julie didn’t seem to hear them. I don’t want her to tell everyone at school that my grandmother lives in a creepy old house. That would definitely not be cool.

  The entry ended.

  I heard my dad call again, and I called back that I’d be right down.

  My thoughts were swirling. My mother had powers. I knew from the vision that she could definitely hear spirits. I had been able to see them long before I could hear them. Was it the same for my mom? Could she see them too?

  Lady Azura had told me that my mother didn’t have any powers. How was it possible that she never told anyone?

  Then I realized I was jumping the gun. This was only beginning of the diary. I was sure that once I kept reading, I would find out what had really happened. My mom had wanted me to find this diary. I was sure that if I kept reading, I would find out what she wanted me to know.

  She is sharing with me how she came to learn about and embrace her powers.

  The thought rolled around inside my head and made me smile. My mom and I had even more in common than I had ever realized.

  I’m just like her.

  I decided I’d read enough for now. I would savor the diary, reading it in small installments so I could draw it out for as long as possible. Kind of like the way I would eat a piece of tiramisu cake from my favorite bakery, Prudente’s. One nibble at a time. I stashed the diary under my mattress, straightened the covers, and headed downstairs.

  Chapter 3

  My dad was standing in the front hallway, his jacket on, keys in his hand. He was dressed for going out. Pants that looked ironed. Blue shirt tucked in. He’d even shaved.

  “You ready, kiddo?” he called when he saw me at the top of the stairs.

  I almost asked him what he was talking about, and then I realized it was nearly six. I had a date tonight with Mason. Well, sort of a date. We were meeting at Lenny’s and having pizza together and then hanging out. My dad was supposed to drive me.

  I’d been looking forward to this date with Mason big-time, so it was a little hard to believe I had almost forgotten about it. But I guess the diary trumped Mason, even if he was the cut
est boy at school. (In my opinion. Lily’s crush, Cal, was also supercute, but to be honest I found him a little boring to talk to.) I had been crushing on Mason for a while now, and it was starting to seem like maybe he liked me, too. I had promised Lily I would fill her in on every detail later tonight.

  “Be right there!” I said, pivoting and returning to my room. There wasn’t much I could do about my hair in two minutes, so I decided to throw it up in a loose bun. Lily always told me I looked good with my hair up. I dug through a drawer until I found a tube of lip gloss and put a light coating on my lips. I smiled as I remembered my mom putting lip balm on in my vision. I looked my outfit over carefully in the mirror. In jeans and a striped long-sleeved tee, I certainly couldn’t be accused of looking overdressed. I wished I had Lily’s fashion sense—she would probably be able to add some little accessory to my outfit, like a belt or bracelet, to make it look perfect. The only accessory I had on was the same one I always wore—my crystal necklace. But it was almost six, so my ensemble would have to do. Luckily, Mason was a casual kind of guy anyway. He always wore jeans and a random T-shirt and scuffed-up board sneakers. And besides, he was used to seeing me dressed like this. It would be totally weird to show up for pizza all decked out in a dress or something. At least I hoped so!

  I ran down the stairs and smiled at my dad.

  “Ready for your big pizza date?” he asked in a teasing voice. He knew all about Mason. I had told him we were meeting up for pizza, though I hadn’t called it a date. I was secretly kind of glad my dad thought it was a date. I hoped he was right. I really wanted it to be a date.

  I sniffed the air purposefully as we got into the car and buckled our seat belts. “I might ask you the same thing,” I said. “It’s not every day you wear the cologne I gave you for Christmas. You must have some big plans of your own. . . .”

  I generally approved of my father dating. He’d never really gotten over my mother’s death, I knew, but I didn’t want him to be lonely. With a couple of notable exceptions, I usually liked the women he went on dates with.