Three Witches

by Paula Jolin

  They reached the end of the street. Gillian looked as far as she could in one direction; Aliya peered around the corner in the other. “Right,” Aliya said. Gillian’s car jumped to the right and sped up. “What are you doing? Do you want him to see us? Don’t you know how to follow anyone?”

  If only Gillian had gotten in off the wait list at Spygirl Institute.

  Luckily, she only had to duck and swerve for three more streets. Then Luke took a right on Daimler and headed toward Route 1. Where the hell was he going? A quick look at Aliya’s white face told her what the girl was thinking: out to the state forest, to Trevor’s last resting place.

  Except that here he was, turning left on Old Post Road. Not two minutes from the center of town, but it felt like country. On one side, mansions with rolling front lawns; across the street, thick woods. “There’s no one else on the road. He’s a complete cunumunu if he doesn’t know we’re following him.”

  As though he’d heard her, Luke pulled over, stopped short. Gillian shot past him, staring straight ahead, but Aliya turned right around in her seat and gave a play-by-play. “Don’t worry, he’s not even looking up. He’s getting out, slamming the door . . . now he’s walking in front of a small brown sign—hey, I know where he’s going. Stop the car.”

  For some strange reason, Gillian bumped over onto the grassy shoulder.

  “There’s a path over there,” said Aliya. “It leads to Fuller’s Lake. Come on.” They were out of the car, Aliya running, Gillian scrambling to catch up. After all, there was something in that bag, maybe, something he might be about to consign to the depths of the lake.

  They entered the woods and tumbled down the path. “Do you have to break every freaking twig in the forest?”

  Aliya jabbed her with an elbow. “Shhh.” Girl had some nerve, when she the one making all the noise.

  They came out onto a grassy hill, and below it, a sandy beach. It took a couple of seconds to find him, but she saw that Luke was walking toward a thin figure sitting at the end of the pier. Even from behind, Gillian recognized the pink hair. She couldn’t help looking at Aliya; sure enough, Aliya was looking right back.

  Miya Chonan. Once blue-ribbon speller, ace math tester, hand waver beyond compare. Today: slut of the year, complete with little red horns and black sash.

  What was Luke doing, looking up Miya? Did they really want to know? One more look at the girl beside her, and Gillian guessed they did. Aliya tilted her head toward a nearby clump of trees, her meaning clear.

  SIX

  “CAREFUL YOU DON’T fall in,” said a voice behind her.

  Miya sat at the very end of the pier, swinging her legs over the two million gallons of Fuller Lake. Home to trout, bass, catfish, crappie, and—wait, what was it?—oh yes, tadpoles. That was local geography for eight hundred points, thank you very much.

  “This is a funny place for a meeting,” said Luke, taking a seat on the plank beside her. Almost beside her. A small pile of rocks sat between them. Miya sorted through the pile, picked out a small round one, and tossed it. One second, two seconds—best of rocks, heading for the sunset horizon—and splash.

  “Don’t you remember?” she said. Almost four years ago now, that fateful company picnic where they’d talked Arthurian legends and her mother had met his father for the first time.

  Luke didn’t answer. Perhaps he, too, was trying to swipe an eraser over the blackboard of the past. He divided the pile into round stones and smooth stones—very methodical, Luke. She’d forgotten that.

  “I feel like some kind of spy,” said Luke. “All this, ‘meet me at the pier, four o’clock, come alone.’” He pushed brown bangs off his forehead. “What’s up, Miya?”

  “Just wanted to tell you how sad I am about Trevor,” she said. Held her breath, wondered if by some supernatural chance he knew. She snuck a glance at him out of the corner of her eye: no sign of gnosis, as he passed a flat rock from one hand to the other. “And I figured your mom wouldn’t be too thrilled if I showed up at your house.”

  “Huh?” Luke skimmed the rock across the water. Four, five, six hops—he’d always been the best at skimming. It had been Trevor on distance, of course. “Oh, that. My mom’s a bit of a basket case these days. She doesn’t recognize me even, most of the time. The doctor’s got her high as a kite on ’ludes. She’s even fawning all over that damn dog, the one she used to threaten to euthanize day after day.”

  “Oh,” said Miya. “Sorry.” She was, too. She pictured Trevor’s mother, prostrate, sobbing on her bed—not difficult, since she’d seen her that way before. It had been Miya who’d sent her rushing there, then . . . “Were you at Mal’s that night?” she asked Luke. “Was that the last time you saw him?”

  “Why are you asking me? Weren’t you there?”

  Miya sat so still on the pier that she might have been frozen to it.

  “Talking to Trevor—that’s right, all intense, in the corner of the TV room. I saw you. It just never occurred to me . . .” He leaned over, tugged on the ends of her hair. His cologne, something musky and male, spilled off his shoulders. “Give up the nonsense about condolences, Sim. You called me down here for a reason, didn’t you?” His eyes flashed, his voice had a bite to it.

  “To tell you how sorry I am, about Trevor.” Had he really seen her talking to Trevor? They’d been hidden behind the high-backed sofa, hemmed in by that glass curio cabinet. She closed her eyes, sank back into Mal’s living room—hip-hop pounding in her ears, couch reeking with beer, Trevor shouting. Shouting loud enough for someone else to hear? But no one had been nearby. No one she’d noticed, anyway.

  It had been a long time since she’d noticed Luke.

  “You’re the secret girlfriend, aren’t you?” Luke stared at her. He’d grown taller, broader, more commanding since middle school. “I thought it was just Glimmer playing the drama queen, but it was all true, wasn’t it? That’s why you called me down here today.”

  Glimmer Collins had done some sobbing at the memorial service, wailed that Trevor’d never kissed her, never even touched her; he was in love with somebody he couldn’t have. Typical Glimmer scene. Not that Miya’d dared to go to the service. Savannah Lucas, Glimmer’s best friend, had run a useful play by play on her MySpace page.

  Miya twisted her head with the wind. Let him think her heart was broken, why not? Better that than the truth. But instead she said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “It would kill my mom if Trevor was with you. I thought Glimmer was just talking out her ass, but this, this makes sense.”

  “Me and Trevor?” Miya’s hand slipped, sent half the stone pile into the water. Splash,gurgle, klunk. Eighty-seven hundred liters of water swallowed them up. “You have it all wrong, we didn’t, we weren’t . . .”

  Why should he believe her? Her big mistake, stripping for the Cavalho twins. No better way to confirm the school rumors that Miya would do anything.

  At least she’d said no to the videotape.

  “Someone saw him up on Standish Road, you know, that little clearing just before you reach the access road to the forest? After he left the party, an hour or two later—”

  “The Crescent?” Miya’s teeth slid into her lip. At school, in the library, she chewed on pencils, but here she was stuck with nothing but body parts. “Bastard, he said he’d given up.”

  “Given up?”

  Miya looked across the lake, where the sun was spraypainting everything pink and purple. Her butt, ice-cold against the top of the pier, had begun to hurt. She should get up, go home, make some dinner. Get out her Calc book and do those last eight problems. Check her e-mail, tell Rod Crew to stop sending her those stupid blow-job jokes.

  “You know the Crescent. Trevor and Mal used to hang out there and smoke pot, and maybe, well, you know Mal, she’ll try anything. Some people like their reputations wild. But Trevor was supposed to be through with all that.”

  “He was with a girl, wasn’t Mal. They were standing in front of a car, a whit
e Buick, the girl’s car, I guess, and arguing. She was shouting at him.”

  “Could have been Mal.”

  He reached out, tugged her hair again. An electric shock—or something—must have passed between them, because her hair stood on end and she shivered. He told her, “The person who saw her, who told the police about it after Trevor—well, after all the stuff in the paper about Trevor— he only caught a glimpse of her face in the headlights, but he said she had red hair.” She half turned her head, found herself looking into his gray eyes. “Was it you?”

  It had been a long time since a boy had stared at her like that—as though she wasn’t a girl at all, just a means to some information. Miya unbuttoned the top two buttons of her jacket. Ignored the cold that brushed across her v-necked chest, slouched her shoulders till a bit of rounded breast showed through.

  “It wasn’t me,” she said. “We did talk at the party, but it wasn’t all intense.” She always sounded her most truthful when she told her biggest lies. “Why are you asking? You don’t think—Trevor wasn’t depressed or anything, was he?” Her gaze drifted until she was staring back down into the lake, which seemed to have grown black. She was unprepared for his fingers on her chin, for him to wrench her head around. “What the hell are you insinuating?” he asked.

  “I didn’t say anything.” She leaned forward, tucked her trembling hands behind her knees under her thighs.

  “I can take melodramatic shit from Glimmer, but you’re too intelligent to try to pull this crap. Trevor was driving too fast, flying up the road like a maniac, just the way he always did.” The same unconvincing story she’d been telling herself all afternoon.

  He stood up. “You’d better forget this stupidness.”

  She peeled her jeans off the wooden pier and scrambled to her feet. Moved close to him, as close as she dared. “I don’t see why it matters now.”

  “Jesus,” said Luke. His foot swung out, and he kicked the remaining rocks into the water.

  “Luke, I’m sorry.” She leaned over to clutch his arm, but somehow she missed. He was already shoving his hands into his pockets, striding down the pier. She watched as he 43 reached the rickety steps, jumped them two at a time, headed up the steep path that led to the street.

  Then she started after him.

  SEVEN

  AT THE TOP of the path, Miya looked right, then left: no Luke. He must have parked on Davis Drive. Why was she chasing him, anyway? Just to hear herself say sorry, sorry, sorry out loud? He could never give her what she needed—the words it wasn’t your fault, Miya could only come from Trevor.

  She rounded the curve anyway and almost banged knees with a blue, mud-splattered car. She would have thought it belonged to Luke except for the two girls attached, their butts balanced against the back door. One had her arms crossed, and the other seemed to fade into the fur-lined hood of her black jacket.

  Their faces came into focus. Two girls she knew, sort of. Aliya had been on College Bowl one semester, before she quit, claiming late practices hurt her grades. The island girl, Gillian, was in her Calc class. Write it on the board, and she’d complain: problem was too easy, chalk too squeaky, teacher too lazy.

  What were they doing here?

  “Hey,” said Miya. They must have seen Luke, watched him disappear. She’d just ask where he’d gone, all casual . . .

  “So what was the deal between you and Trevor?” asked Aliya.

  Miya stopped. They couldn’t have overheard her conversation with Luke, could they? Anyway, she hadn’t said . . . what had she said? All she could remember was her pounding heart, her scattered thoughts; Luke’s gray eyes not quite seeing her. God, she hated that. She’d given up playing the Invisible Asian Girl long ago.

  “Well?” said Aliya.

  “No deal,” said Miya quickly. She’d remember it if she’d given herself away. She would. She was famous for her memory. “I’ve known Trevor since middle school, that’s all. We met down there, at the lake.” Her mother and Mr. Sanders flashed across her mind, dancing that exuberant salsa on the shore, all their colleagues studiously looking away.

  “You were with him that last night,” said Aliya. Her dark eyes shone with suspicion. “If you know something—”

  Maybe you’re right. His last words echoed in her head. Miya turned, tried to find something to look at. Nothing but dirty gray road below, dismal gray sky above. What business was it of theirs, anyway? Spying on her, eavesdropping, and now trying to badger her into leaking gossip.

  God, Miya hated girls.

  She pulled her jacket closed. “I don’t know anything,” she said at last. “There isn’t anything to know. He was hanging out at Mal’s party, and we said hi. Maybe I asked him how his family was or whatever, but it’s not like we were friends. Not anymore.” Maybe I told him to stop thinking about himself for once. Maybe I—but no. There was no going back.

  Aliya opened her mouth to say something that sounded like “Didn’t—” but Gillian kicked her. “Look, we’re just trying to sort out what happened with Trevor that last night, and since.”

  “Since? He went over a cliff and his car exploded.”

  A little harsh, that. Aliya rubbed her lips together, blinked rapidly, and Miya was sure she was crying. Playing the drama queen? A boy died in my school and I’m so sad, sob, sob, sob. She wouldn’t have credited Aliya so, back when they squabbled on College Bowl and Aliya was right that the first sociologist was Ibn Khaldun, not Emile Durkheim. Annoying, sometimes, that Aliya, but she was no Glimmer Collins.

  Not that it mattered. Miya had never known what to do with girls. She took in gray road again, gray tires, gray, gray sky before she finally managed a short, “Sorry.”

  “Here’s the thing,” said Gillian. “We were wondering, you know, if you’ve had any out of the ordinary experiences.” Aliya elbowed her, a short, sharp jab; Gillian pushed back. “Anything you can’t explain, something supernatural, that sort of thing.”

  Miya yanked her hair hard enough that it hurt. “What are you, Ghostbusters or something?”

  “It’s not like that, Miya.” Aliya intertwined her slender fingers; it almost looked like she was praying. “We just . . . we think—”

  “We have our reasons,” interrupted Gillian. She shook her head so fiercely her earrings jingled. “And they’re not necessarily the same ones. Some people are looking out for themselves, others are just crazy.”

  “Sorry, I can’t help you,” said Miya. The street was wide open, but she started feeling hemmed in, all those trees. Or maybe it was Gillian’s menacing look. The island girl plunged her hands into her pockets, came out with a well-worn piece of paper. She unfolded it, looked it over. Just a couple of typed lines, Miya could see through the back of the page. Gillian read it once, twice, three times.

  “What’s that?” asked Miya.

  Gillian didn’t look up. “Did you ever wonder if we know the truth about Trevor’s death? The whole truth?”

  Had the whole world been at that damn party, listening in? Either that, or Trevor had worn a wire—

  Or written a note.

  Miya’s eyes returned to the paper in Gillian’s hands. Its creases and smears seemed to take on a sense of weight, an aura of seriousness. She squinted, trying to make out the words through the back. Was that I can’t? As in, I can’t go on?

  “Can I see that paper please?”

  Gillian peered over the top of it. “The evidence on this paper offers a whole different way of looking at Trevor’s death,” she told Miya. “Why should I share it with you—you won’t even tell us what Trevor said to you at Mal’s party.”

  Evidence.

  Gillian started to fold back the paper. Folding away Miya’s chance to find out Trevor’s last thoughts, his reasons for, well, for whatever it was he’d done.

  Not if she could help it. Miya opened her eyes wide, looked over Gillian’s shoulders, and said, “Oh my God” in a half whisper. The oldest trick in the world’s most predictable book, but Gilli
an and Aliya both turned their heads. In that half second, Miya leaned forward and snatched the note out of the other girl’s hand.

  Then she spun around and ran.

  EIGHT

  MIYA CRASHED BACK through the woods, but instead of taking the path down to the pier, she veered left, toward the Daqri Apartments and Court Street; right after that she’d hit downtown. Less of a walk than school to Fuller Lake. Were they following her? If the note were as vital as Gillian claimed, surely they’d be panting at her heels. The crunch of broken twigs echoed in the woods, followed by the crash of someone parting leaves. She sprinted past the Daqri sign, leaped the fence, took off down Court Street. She turned the corner. Downtown Fillmore was hardly New York City, but there was always a crowd shuffling on the sidewalks, especially late afternoon. She ducked into the doorway of the ToeShoe Shop and stole a quick look behind. No one there. She uncrumpled the paper in her hand. An e-mail. Hey Aliya, it began. She read through it to the Trevor at the end. Then, cheeks cooling, heart back to regular beats, she read it again.

  Of course, Aliya was the secret girlfriend and Gillian was—well, some shadowy connection. Their behavior made a bit more sense. But why the secret? Aliya was smart, confident, verging on beautiful: willowy figure, clouds of dark hair, that fragile look. Sure they ran with different crowds, but everyone threw over caste for love. No need for Trevor to make such a fuss.

  But if Aliya was the girlfriend, who was the redhead at the Crescent?

  Da-da-di. Miya’s cell phone rang. She swung up her purse and pulled it out. Mom. Hardly time for a chat, was it? But Mom didn’t easily accept being ignored. She’d call back. And call back. And call back—

  “Hey.”

  “Guess where I am?”

  Miya sucked in the sides of her cheeks, walked past the Papeterie and the halal butcher shop. Got assaulted by a wave of fried food from Fries With That, all the way across the street.