The Wrong Way Home: Chapters 14–18

There are plants everywhere. Interesting plants. Plants hanging from the ceiling. There are some I’ve never seen before inside glass cases that are fogging from the humidity, like mini-greenhouses.

“As I’ve mentioned before, my favorite project of the year is the one we’ll be starting today,” Mr. Carlson continues. “We get to take some of the scientific and environmental principles we’ve learned so far and apply them to real-life scenarios.”

One project looked at the local effects of climate change by measuring the erosion of the cliffs along the coastline.

“All right,” he says. “Now that you’ve gotten the gist of things, you can go ahead and choose your partners.”

I want to be a scientist, maybe even a virologist, so I’ve read a lot about germs and viruses.

The edges of the leaf are mottled green, but the center is a brilliant pretty pinkish purple.

Sometimes she’s late to meals because she spends so long tinkering in the greenhouse.

I stare at him. I hope he can see the conviction burning in my eyes.

“Speaking of my mom, I’m sorry,” Eddie says. “Actually, I’m sorry about both of my parents. They’re obsessed.”
“With what?”
“Anything slightly paranormal. And right now it’s the Spirit of the Sea. If they try to rope you into talking about it, pretend you have to go to the bathroom. That usually works.”

“Speaking of my mom, I’m sorry,” Eddie says. “Actually, I’m sorry about both of my parents. They’re obsessed.”
“With what?”
“Anything slightly paranormal. And right now it’s the Spirit of the Sea. If they try to rope you into talking about it, pretend you have to go to the bathroom. That usually works.”

Luckily, it doesn’t seem like she’s expecting more of a response from me, because she goes into her closet and starts rummaging around.

Eddie comes out of the closet with a giant piece of cardboard. She flips it around and presents it to me. At the top it says “Disproving the Existence of the Spirit of the Sea with the Scientific Method. Project by Eddie Chattar.”

I frown. “Wait. So you want to prove the Spirit of the Sea isn’t real? I thought you said your parents are trying to prove it is real.”
“They are. I’m not.” Her eyes burn with intensity.

“But if you prove she isn’t real,” I say, “wouldn’t that just make them want to move on even sooner? Wouldn’t proving that she’s real be the thing that makes them want to stay here for good?”
“But she’s not real, and that’s the whole point. Sometimes bad things just happen. Not because of anything supernatural.”

I don’t care about grades, but I do care about all the trash I’ve seen around Driftaway Beach, strewn on the roads and sidewalks.

“You don’t think I’m…Amish?”
She laughs. “I mean, unless you’re part of a religious group from rural Pennsylvania, then no.”

According to Eddie, the scientific method happens in a series of steps. Those are:
(1) Pose a question.
This one’s easy...Our question is, “Does the Spirit of the Sea exist?”
(2) Form a hypothesis.
Eddie says a hypothesis is a kind of opinion. “But it’s based on facts,” she tells me. “For instance, there’s never been clear evidence that ghosts exist. So my prediction—and our hypothesis—is that the Spirit of the Sea isn’t real.”
(3) Test the prediction with experiments.

“Our main experiment,” Eddie says, “will be data collection and observation. The data collection part will be talking to locals about it. We should each find people to talk to over the next week, and then compare stories. The more inconsistencies, the better. And for the observation part, if we can observe the ghostly figure of the Spirit of the Sea, maybe we can find a way to show someone’s faking it. Or that it’s an illusion, created by fog and moonlight or something. See what I mean?”

On our walk to Birdie’s, the sun is setting. At the Ranch, it felt more that the light was seeping out of the sky. The trees were all around us. It felt safe, but they also kept out the sky. Here it’s like…it’s like the world is going through a transformation.

“Do you want any social media accounts?” she asks. “I could get you set up for those, too.”
“No.” I don’t know much about what you actually do with social media, but I do know that it’s bad. Then, repeating something Dr. Ben says all the time, I add, “That stuff is like anesthesia for your brain.”

I choose a lemon one and take a bite. This is sweet, too. This icing, all this sugar…My stomach churns. Not because the food is bad—it’s so good. It’s because I’m bad.

We go up a rickety set of stairs and enter a wide room, roughly the same shape and size as the tea shop below.

Anything you think can be salvaged or sold, keep it in here. And anything that needs to go to the dump, pile in that room over there.

Dr. Ben once said something about how resourceful she is, and that we should all strive to do our work like her.

“Anyway! Suffice to say I’ll be happy to have you around more, and to start getting this place cleared out. Birdie’s high-tea expansion, coming right up!”