The In-Between

by Rebecca K. S. Ansari

  “Can you be a victim if you don’t really die, though?”

  “What are you guys still doing up?”

  Both Cooper and Jess turned toward their mom peeking around the door, her voice tired. “Seriously, guys. I’m glad you’ve found something to do other than fight, but it’s way past Jess’s bedtime again, and honey, you know you need your sleep after last night.” Her head disappeared, her voice receding down the hallway. “Please, both of you, make better choices.”

  Jess gave Cooper’s hand a squeeze. “I guess we’ll pick this back up tomorrow?”

  “I guess?” Cooper shrugged. What else was there to do or say tonight?

  Jess closed his door on her way out, and the hallway light clicked off. Though Cooper turned his own light off and crawled under the covers, sleep was going to be impossible. Instead, as he lay in the dark, his brain filled with images from within Elena’s house. He rolled over, making the bruise on his backside ache. It reminded him of his fall.

  Of that bird. That black bird that had scared him. A raven?

  Was that the bird on the Vigilantes shield?

  His mother had been too tired to confiscate the iPad, so he snuck it under the covers and searched “raven symbols.” The results offered absolutely no resassurance. The first article he linked to began:

  The raven has long been considered a bird of ill omen. As a carrion bird, ravens obtained mythic status as a mediator animal between life and death, associated with dead and lost souls. In Swedish folklore, ravens are the ghosts of murdered people without Christian burials, and in German stories, they are damned souls.

  Cooper clicked off the screen, crept from beneath his blanket, and tiptoed to the window, staring into the night at Elena’s house with its soft, friendly glow. Light shone from the two upstairs bedroom windows like eyes. Smoke continued to rise from a fire he knew wasn’t burning. Cooper stared until his eyes ached, blinking only when tears started to spill over the edges of his lower lids.

  One of the two lights turned off and then on again. It was as if the house had winked at him.

  Jess was right. Something bad was coming. But Cooper had come to a conclusion Jess hadn’t yet reached. One that he was not ready to share with her.

  If only he and Jess could see Elena, they were as marked for disaster as she was.

  16

  “This is what happens when you guys stay up too late.”

  Their mom poured herself a third cup of coffee and then sat at the table with Cooper and Jess. She looked at them and shook her head. Cooper and Jess shared a glance, too tired and too scared to do anything more than chew. Even if Cooper had had the energy to try to explain it to his mom, he wouldn’t even know where to start.

  “Jess, how are you feeling?”

  “Fine.”

  On a normal day, his mother’s exclusive interest in Jess’s well-being would have bothered Cooper. But today was no normal day. As he picked up his cereal bowl and put it to his lips to finish the sweet, cereal-polluted milk his mom always made him drink, his previous concerns seemed so inconsequential. What was the point of worrying about Jess writing texts to Dad if there was some terrible, looming tragedy? What did it matter if he hung out with Zack or Gus?

  Cooper froze.

  Gus. He had come down the alley last week.

  “Elena, this is Gus.”

  “I picked up on that.”

  Gus had waved. He had suggested all three of them play a game together.

  He could see Elena too.

  Cooper’s bowl fell from his lips, bounced off the table, and shattered against the floor. His spoon skittered across the tile and clanged against the bottom of the refrigerator, the din causing Jess to cry out in surprise.

  “Cooper!” his mom cried, but he barely heard her.

  “Gus!” Cooper said to Jess.

  Jess looked at him in confusion. Cooper shook his head. There was no way to explain until they were alone. “Sorry!” he said to his mom, and crossed the kitchen to get the broom and the paper towels. He swept and scrubbed and dumped the mess into the trash while his mind spun with the knowledge that he, Jess, and Gus were in this together. The three of them were on some terrible team they had never asked to join. The question now was why? And who else, if anyone, was with them?

  He took the stairs two at a time to his room and stuffed his binder and loose homework sheets into his backpack. Jess was at the door when he turned.

  “He sees her too,” Cooper said, answering her unspoken question.

  “The guy that was here last week?”

  “Yes! Gus! When I was talking to Elena, he interrupted us.”

  “He talked to her? You’re sure?”

  “He specifically asked her if she wanted to hang out with us!”

  Jess hurried to her room for her backpack.

  “Guys, you don’t have to go to the bus stop for another ten minutes,” their mom called over her breakfast as the two of them flew down the stairs.

  “We know,” they said in unison as the front door banged shut behind them.

  An icy wind lifted Jess’s bangs and took Cooper’s breath away. The vast gray sky was broken only by the skeletal lines of the nearly naked tree branches. Blooms on the neighbor’s rosebushes that had been limp yesterday were now crispy black, each one lolling downward like its neck had been broken overnight.

  Cooper broke into a jog and headed toward Ms. Dreffel’s house.

  “I don’t understand,” Jess said through short breaths, the contents of her backpack jangling with each footfall. “You, me, and Gus can see Elena and the house, but not Mom? Why?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He did have an idea. But he wasn’t about to tell his sister Because I think we’re doomed.

  “What are you going to say to him?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What if you tell Gus all of this and he thinks you’re crazy?”

  “I have no idea!”

  Jess stopped and gave her brother a stare. He pulled up too and said, “Look. The good news is that if he can see Elena, at least we have an ally. I don’t know why we’re in this together, but we are. At the very least, Gus needs to know what we know, and maybe he can help us figure out what is going on.”

  “And what if he can’t?”

  “Well, we’re certainly not going to know if we don’t tell him. Come on.”

  With Jess begrudgingly satisfied, they took off again. As they jogged on, Cooper told Jess what he had learned about ravens the night before. She found it as worrisome as he had.

  They rounded the stop sign and there was Gus, standing alone at his stop at the end of the next block, bracing against the cold. His sweatshirt, which had seemed too hot when school started, now seemed completely inadequate for the autumn weather.

  “Hey!” Cooper called out. They came to a stop beside Gus, panting. Cooper’s face burned, and he assumed his cheeks were as pink as Jess’s in the chapping air. Their quick exhalations rose in foggy clouds.

  “Hey.” Gus brightened at their greeting. “What are you guys doing down here?”

  “Um . . .” Cooper looked at Jess. She shrugged. “Well, I had a question for you. Remember that girl I introduced you to last week?”

  “Elena?” Gus said with a nod.

  “I knew it! You do see her?”

  “See her?” Gus leaned to the side and searched the sidewalk behind Cooper and Jess. “Not at the moment.”

  “No, no, no. Not now! I mean on Thursday. You saw her, right?”

  Gus’s smile faded slightly, and he tugged on both straps of his backpack. “What do you mean?”

  “And you saw her house too, right? The yellow one behind the swing?” Cooper had to stop himself from grabbing Gus’s arms and shaking him.

  “Yeah . . .” He stretched the word out like a rubber band.

  “So this is going to sound weird, but my mom doesn’t see any of that.”

  Gus didn’t say anything. Instead he tipped his h
ead for Cooper to go on, as if waiting for him to add something that would make more sense.

  A car pulled up to the curb, and the two young boys who also boarded at this stop piled out. They were already in full-on Arctic explorer mode, bundled in winter coats, gloves, hats, and scarves. They stood beside Cooper and Gus, arms propped out six inches from their sides, like overstuffed teddy bears. Their mother shouted, “Have a great day!” and then sat idling, thumbs moving over the screen of her smartphone, awaiting the bus’s arrival.

  Cooper grunted with exasperation as the two seventh-grade girls rounded the far corner, their laughter ringing out as if it were any normal day. To his dismay, Gus took a few steps to the side, allowing space for the girls between them. A scent of sewer gas wafted up and around them from a nearby manhole. It seemed a fitting smell for how well this was going.

  “He thinks we’re nuts,” Cooper muttered to Jess.

  “Yeah, well . . .”

  The two girls stopped talking long enough to give Cooper an unkind glare, assuming he’d been one of the kids making fun of them the other day. That wasn’t me! he wanted to say. On the other side of him, one of the little brothers punched the other in the arm, and a tussle broke out between them. Cooper, who normally would have intervened, decided to let it play itself out since the two were basically bubble wrapped. Their mother didn’t even notice.

  It wasn’t long before the school bus came to a halt in front of them and the yellow door opened with a clunk. The little boys boarded first, still slapping at each other, followed by the two girls. Gus held a hand out, ushering Jess and Cooper aboard ahead of him, but he said nothing.

  Cooper climbed the stairs and proceeded to his usual seat. Instead of allowing Jess to peel off partway down the aisle, he took her hand and pulled her with him. She gave him a firm thank-you squeeze, and they took a seat near the back. He was disappointed but not surprised to see Gus take his normal position up front.

  Zack, already seated behind them, said “Hey, guys! Why’re you at this stop?”

  “Oh, Jess and I had some stuff we needed to talk about.” Was it possible Zack could see Elena as well? Was it something kids could do, but not adults? How did you ask someone if they could see something they very well might not be able to see? He couldn’t readily say, “A few of us appear to be having a shared hallucination and wondered if you are, too?”

  Cooper hooked his elbow over the back of his seat and turned. “Zack, what do you know about the house behind mine?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. It seems kinda weird, right?” It was the best Cooper could come up with.

  “Well, yeah. I don’t really know anything about it, but I think Tyler and his friends snuck in there a few weeks ago. I could ask him about it, if you want?”

  Snuck in.

  No one “snuck in” to occupied houses.

  Not only did Zack not see the yellow house the way Cooper, Jess, and Gus saw it, apparently neither did Tyler or any of his buddies.

  “Jess, are you okay?” Zack asked.

  Cooper looked at his sister. She looked slightly green. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I don’t feel very well.”

  “I’ve got a granola bar,” Zack said, familiar with her diabetes. He started to dig through his backpack.

  “No, Zack. That’s okay,” she declined.

  “Is your sugar low?” Cooper asked, fearing yet another curveball from this day. “Do you need to go to the nurse when we get to school?”

  Jess shook her head, then leaned on Cooper’s shoulder. “No. My blood sugar’s not the problem.”

  “Yeah.” Cooper nodded. “I hear ya.”

  They both watched the back of Gus’s head all the way to school.

  17

  Cooper scanned the hallways for Gus all day, to no avail. They had no classes together, but he usually saw Gus at his locker or in passing. He wasn’t in the lunchroom, nor was he in Mrs. Wishingrad’s old room when Cooper walked by.

  When Gus’s seat was empty as Cooper boarded the bus at the end of the day, he had to assume Gus had gone home early. He chucked his backpack in frustration onto the seat beside him, only to watch it bounce and tumble to the floor, pouring its contents beneath the bench in front of him.

  Zack sat a few rows farther back than normal, joking around with some of their classmates. As Cooper picked up all his papers, he hoped Zack would still have his back if the cool kids made fun of him. But Cooper also knew there was only so long he could expect Zack’s loyalty.

  Jess made it onto the bus at the last minute and took advantage of the open seat by her brother. “Where’s Gus?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “No. I never saw him again after this morning.”

  Jess appeared to find this answer as unsatisfying as Cooper felt saying it.

  Cooper, Jess, and Zack climbed off the bus at their stop, and said their goodbyes as Zack headed up his driveway. After he was out of earshot, Jess asked, “Are you and Zack still friends?”

  “Yeah,” Cooper said with a shrug. “I guess.”

  “You should invite him over more.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just, I mean, I don’t think you can really stay friends with someone if you never hang out.”

  Cooper shook his head. He and Jess had shared more in the last week than they had in the last year, but he still had no interest in talking to his sister about how he managed his friendships. “Thanks for the input,” he said, each word sharp.

  “I think—”

  “Don’t.”

  “It’s—”

  “Stop! It’s none of your business. You wouldn’t get it anyway.”

  Jess’s face fell, and Cooper felt the familiar stab of satisfaction in shutting her up. But he also knew she was only trying to help. A tiny part of him wanted to mumble Sorry.

  Jess turned to go into their house, but Cooper stopped her with a gentle hand on her elbow. “Hey, come with me over to Gus’s. I don’t want to wait another day to talk to him about Elena, so let’s go to his place together and see if he can come over.”

  She looked like she was trying to decide whether to forgive him for snapping at her. She squinted in the direction of Gus’s bus stop. “Do you know which house is his?”

  “Yup.” Cooper took a step down the sidewalk. “Ms. Dreffel’s his grandma.”

  Jess didn’t move. “You know,” she said after a moment, “I think maybe it’d be better if we call him.”

  “I don’t have his number.” Jess grimaced, and Cooper took a couple steps back to her. “Look,” he said. “I don’t want to go to Ms. Dreffel’s house any more than you do, but there’s no other way.”

  “If he went home sick, he probably can’t come over anyway.”

  “You know what I think? I think you’re afraid to go near her house.”

  “What I think is that Ms. Dreffel is going to bake us into a pie.”

  The joke brought much-needed levity to what had otherwise been a grim last twenty-four hours. Cooper erupted in laughter. Jess started giggling too, amused as much by her brother’s reaction as her own joke.

  After a moment, Jess nodded. “Fine. I’m in. But it’s your fault if she eats us alive.”

  If the two of them had thought the old woman’s house was uninviting from the sidewalk, they found it downright repellent up close. The front steps wobbled with their weight as they climbed them, and the doorbell button was missing from its rusty casing, looking like it might electrocute them if they stuck a finger into the hole. Cracked and flaking paint covered the doorframe, and a handwritten NO SOLICITORS! sign hung crookedly on the door, secured with a thumbtack.

  “Are we solicitors?” Jess whispered.

  “I don’t think so,” Cooper said, though he wasn’t a hundred percent sure what the word meant.

  He knocked.

  They stood on the steps, turning their backs to the wind.
When there was no answer, Cooper turned back to knock again but stopped with his fist in the air when he saw a curtain move. He waited, assuming whoever had peeked out at them through the little window would open the door, but nothing happened. He inched closer to the window and tried to peer in, but there were no gaps around the sun-bleached floral fabric that now hung flush against the glass.

  “I don’t think anyone’s home,” Jess said.

  “But I just saw someone look out this window.”

  Cooper knocked again and was jolted this time by an immediate, high-pitched screech from behind the door.

  “Go away! Can’t you read?”

  Jess’s eyes went wide, and she took a step back.

  “Hello? Ms. Dreffel?” Cooper said loudly. “We’re here to see Gus.”

  “I said GO AWAY!” came the reply over his.

  “But—”

  “LEAVE! OR I WILL CALL THE POLICE!”

  A sound like an angry cat followed this, then the sound of something heavy dragging against the floor. Was she moving a piece of furniture against the door? Jess was already run-walking down the steps when Cooper spun and followed. It wasn’t until they were around the corner and out of sight of the house that they slowed.

  “What the heck?” Jess said.

  “Wow. Gus said he likes to get out of the house, but jeez, how could he ever stand to be in it?”

  “Hey! Guys!”

  Jess and Cooper turned to see Gus running to catch up with them. He was pink faced and winded by the time he reached them.

  “Hey!” Cooper said. “We were just at your house.”

  “Yeah.” He paused to take a few breaths. “I heard.” He laughed and then pantomimed someone ranting and raving.

  “Did you go home sick or something? I didn’t see you all day.”

  Gus stood up a little straighter, grinning. Apparently, the weirdness of their conversation at the bus stop that morning hadn’t completely driven him away. “I’m all good—I had a note to leave early to help take my grandma to the doctor.”

  “Did they prescribe anything to make her less of a witch?” Jess said.