The Dark In-Between

by Elizabeth Hrib

  “And…?” Casey says quietly, feeling a bead of guilt leak down her spine.

  “And Liddy didn’t,” Red explains. “That thread connecting you is stretched now, from Limbo to this world. It’s why you can hear the whispers of the dead. It’s Liddy’s voice cutting through. It’s also why you see flashes of her.”

  “The visions? Those are real?”

  “Daydreams. Nightmares. Visions. Whatever you want to call them. It’s Liddy reaching out. Trying to bridge the gap between you.”

  “She’s trying to contact me?”

  He nods. “You have to help her cross over and sever the link between you.”

  “Cross over from Limbo,” she says, trying to wrap her head around it. “What if I can’t?”

  “That’s not on the list of options.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this link between you has created a tiny fissure in Limbo. And if Liddy can reach you, other things can, too. Dark things.”

  Before she can open her mouth to press Red for more information, the doorbell rings. Then the alarm system beeps as the front door opens.

  “Casey?” a voice calls.

  It’s Evan.

  “Hey, you!” she hears Karen call from the kitchen.

  “See anything gross and disgusting today?” he asks her.

  “Do you count?”

  Evan laughs so loud, Casey’s heart jumps. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

  “You make it easy, kid.”

  They share other words that are suddenly too low for Casey to hear. It’s clear they’re talking about her. She’s always the cause of the murmurs and whispers and haunted, pitying looks now.

  Then she hears Evan’s feet on the stairs.

  “Hide!” she says to Red.

  “What?”

  “You heard me!” She shoves at him, but he doesn’t budge this time. “Get back in the closet before he sees you!”

  “You should talk to him.”

  “Oh, yeah, and tell him what exactly? That I picked up some angel-baby—”

  “Angel-baby?” Red says with surprise.

  “That’s what you’re acting like right now.” Casey uses her shoulder to press against his chest and he finally relents, moving toward the closet. “There’s no good way to say I found you in a crater on the side of the road. It just doesn’t work.”

  Evan’s shadow moves beneath the door, and she races to cut him off.

  “Hey,” he says when she pulls the door open. “The Stop-n-Shop was having a sale on those chips you like, so I picked some up for tonight.” He tosses the bag at her and she catches it. “Also, thanks for ditching me at the memorial, by the way. It wasn’t awkward at all.”

  “Look, Evan, about tonight—”

  “Aw, don’t tell me you’re bailing. I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it. The thing about you ditching me. I get it.” He takes a breath. “You’re okay, right?” She can hear how hard he’s trying, how much this means to him. She also knows she isn’t the only one mourning Liddy’s loss. Evan had been her friend, too.

  She hears a noise in her room and Casey turns her head sharply.

  “Is everything okay?” Evan asks. He touches her arm to get her attention. “Casey?”

  “I just … Stay here, okay?”

  She leaves him in the hall as she slips back into her room. She doesn’t know how to explain Red—or any of it—to him yet, but she knows they certainly can’t meet here.

  Turning, she half expects to find Red snooping through her drawers. Instead, he’s gone.

  “Red,” she whispers. She whips around. The bag from JoJo’s Diner is gone, too. “Red?”

  She throws open her closet door, diving right through the clothes, feeling from corner to corner in the darkness. Then she rushes across the room to her bed, throwing herself down on her knees and looking under it.

  “Lost something?” Evan asks, pushing the door open.

  “I—No. I haven’t.”

  “Then what are you looking for?”

  She sits on the floor. Where is he? “Nothing.” Has she completely lost her mind?

  Evan holds out his hand and she grabs it, letting him pull her to her feet. He doesn’t let go when she’s up, but tugs gently, until they’re close enough for her to feel the heat of his skin and the soft cotton of his shirt brush against her arms.

  “C’mon,” Evan says quietly. “Forget about today. Forget about Amanda and Sophie and Liddy’s parents and everyone else. We don’t need any of that pomp or decoration or even those terrible-tasting pastries. You know Liddy wouldn’t have wanted it.”

  “It’s not that easy to just forget it all.” She looks away from him for a moment. “Not when you’re the one everyone is staring at.”

  His forehead wrinkles. “I know, but—” Casey shakes her head, but he pushes on. “People shouldn’t make you feel like you have to grieve one way or another. And you don’t have to feel bad for living your life.”

  “Can you stop with the therapy talk, please? Between you and Karen, I can’t take it anymore. I know these things. Been there, done that. Remember?”

  “Right, yeah.” His face folds in an awkward apology, remembering her parents. “It’s just … Liddy’s gone, and now there’s these moments when I feel like there’s this space between us. I know you need time, we all need time. I just don’t want that space to get any bigger.”

  “Me neither,” she says honestly.

  “Then let’s go do it right. Remember Liddy by doing something that made us all happy. She’d want you to be happy.”

  “Evan—”

  “She’d want you to keep living, Casey. Wherever she is, she’d want you to move on.”

  Casey’s free hand falls against her thigh. Liddy isn’t just anywhere, though. According to Red, she’s trapped in this Limbo place. But where is Red now? Gone. Disappeared. Is he coming back? Is she even certain the last few hours happened?

  She wants to tell Evan about Red. She really does. But where’s her proof?

  “I got orange soda in the truck.” He gestures with his thumb.

  She deflates a little at the look on his face. He’s trying so hard to honor Liddy, and to make her feel better. To be present. To be that person who shows up when everything else is falling apart. Despite his own grief, Evan’s the one trying to hold everything together.

  “That was her favorite,” Casey says.

  “I thought we could toast her or something.” His shoulder lifts shyly. “It’s dumb.”

  “It’s not dumb.”

  “Yeah?”

  Casey gives Evan a nudge toward the door. “Go tell Karen we’re going out.”

  Evan puts his hands in his pockets, backing out of the room slowly. His eyes linger on her, a triumphant kind of grin on his face. “Well, okay, then.”

  When he’s gone, she gathers her things, eyes lingering on the places Red had stood, replaying the strange things he told her.

  Find Liddy. Cross over. Sever the link.

  What does that even mean? Thinking about it makes her head ache, the pressure swelling against her skull. She rubs at the space between her eyes, grabs a sweatshirt from her closet, then joins Evan in the front hall.

  Karen stands with him, yawning. When Casey gets to the bottom of the stairs, Karen reaches over to kiss the side of her head. “All right, have fun. But not the kind of fun that I have to get involved in, please.”

  Casey rolls her eyes. “I won’t.”

  “I know.”

  Casey wonders if Karen’s remembering the phone call from the police after she and Liddy had been pulled from the water. After she’d lain on the beach, some stranger pounding on her chest. After she’d been strapped to a stretcher and rushed to the hospital.

  If she does, Karen doesn’t say anything. She just squeezes Casey’s arm once before shuffling her way down the hall.

  “Ready?” Evan says cheerily. He pulls the door open for her.

  She glances at
him and the urge to tell him everything about Red and Liddy and Limbo overwhelms her. But Red’s not here to help her explain. All she has are a roomful of feathers, a missing crater-boy, and a swirling pit of worry in her stomach.

  FOUR

  A BAG OF snack food is packed on the seat between them. Casey picks it up and puts it on the floor by her feet, preparing to slide over closer to Evan, making space for Liddy on her other side. Then she realizes that space will always be empty now, and everything inside her crashes together. She grabs the door handle to keep from toppling over.

  Evan doesn’t notice, just throws his arm over the seat as he turns around to reverse his truck onto the street. “You know, Amanda felt really bad after you left. She came to find me to apologize. She wants you to know that she’s sorry and that she didn’t mean to disrespect Liddy’s memory.”

  Casey purses her lips. “And Sophie?”

  “I couldn’t tell, she always has that sort of vaguely annoyed look going on.”

  “Okay, well, what do you want me to say?”

  Evan clicks his tongue. “Nothing. Just thought you should know.”

  “I didn’t overreact,” she huffs.

  “I never said you did. Honestly, I probably would have done the same thing.”

  “Would you have? Because I’m pretty sure the guys from your team were taking photos.”

  “I would’ve stopped it if I’d seen it,” Evan insists.

  Casey stares at her reflection in the glass. “I know. I’m sorry. Displacing my anger.”

  “Displace away,” Evan says.

  She knows he means it, and that’s not fair to him. She turns her head to tell him she’s sorry again, but he’s not paying attention.

  “What’s going on up there?” Evan says a moment later.

  Casey glances out the windshield. There’s yellow caution tape strung along the side of the road, blocking off something surrounded by traffic cones. A police cruiser is parked on the shoulder, lights flashing, and a deputy sheriff directs traffic around the cones.

  Casey fidgets in her seat, knowing this is where she picked up Red.

  “Think it was an accident?” Evan slows down, jaw dropping as he sees the crater. He rolls down his window. “Hey, Joe!” he shouts, waving to get his attention. “Joe!”

  The deputy looks over, unimpressed.

  “Just kidding, Deputy Brown.”

  “Move along, Evan.”

  “What happened?”

  The deputy waves them on. “Keep driving. You’re holding up traffic.”

  Evan reluctantly obeys, and the flashing lights begin to drop away behind them. “That hole was freaking huge!”

  “Maybe something fell out of the sky,” Casey mutters drily.

  Evan snorts. “Like what, a meteor?” He slows to a stop at a traffic light. “You think it was an alien spacecraft and the government rolled up and took the evidence?”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know, but this is the most interesting thing that’s happened since the seniors put all of the shopping carts on the roof of the Food Surplus as their class prank.” He turns, following the line of the coast toward the drive-in. “What happened to your car, by the way?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Saw your windshield had a crack when I pulled into the driveway. Did that happen today?”

  “Oh. Yeah.” She shrugs, her heart beating a little faster. “A rock flew out behind a truck downtown. Nicked the glass.”

  “I hate it when that happens.”

  He bought the lie so easily, she feels a twinge of guilt in her gut.

  “Me too,” she murmurs.

  * * *

  THE DRIVE-IN IS packed to bursting with cars. To find parking, Evan has to wedge his truck between a pair of campers; children spill out around them in a never-ending wave, screaming as they’re set free. A few of them press their faces to the windows of his truck and blow raspberries, leaving greasy smudges against the glass.

  “Ugh, why are you like this!” Evan yells after them. “I was never like this as a child.”

  Casey grins at the sheer look of disgust on his face as he rolls the window down. “Oh, yes, because we were so well behaved.”

  “I was a model child, thank you very much.”

  “You used to stomp on my Lego houses when I wouldn’t let you help me.”

  “I was giving you the chance to experience creative freedom,” Evan says diplomatically. “Popcorn?”

  “Is that even a question?”

  He ducks out of the truck, pointing an accusing finger at the window-defacing culprits, before weaving his way through the lot. His head bobs between vehicles, his face shifting from neutral to a hearty smile as he runs into some kids from school. Casey squints, recognizing them as Rob MacKee and his girlfriend, Kirsten; they’d all had the same Spanish class last year.

  Evan exchanges one of those weird boyish handshakes with Rob and chats for a minute. Then Evan points toward her suddenly, motioning to the truck. Casey feels like a deer in headlights as Kirsten looks over, her lips stretching into something that almost resembles a smile. Clearly she wouldn’t know what to say because she can’t even get her face to decide on an emotion.

  Rob lifts his hand in greeting; less weird, just as awkward. Casey waves back, debating about diving onto the floor for cover.

  Evan leaves Rob and Kirsten and joins the line for popcorn, basked in the too-bright light of the concession stand. It paints him in a glow, the light turning yellow around his silhouette.

  Casey leans her head out the open window. The day had been a wild ride from start to finish. The memorial … Amanda and Sophie …

  Red.

  Part of her is still worrying over Red’s disappearance from her bedroom. For a moment, though, another part of her relishes how good it feels to be out with Evan just doing something normal. How nice it is to pretend, even for a little while, that this is any other summer.

  That Liddy isn’t dead.

  Evan hurries back to the truck and hands her a bag brimming with popcorn through the window.

  “I put extra butter on. I know our cholesterol levels will suck when we’re fifty, but that’s a tomorrow problem, right?”

  “Right,” Casey agrees, her stomach already growling at the smell.

  She pops a couple of pieces into her mouth, grinning eagerly when Evan climbs back inside the truck, and then reaches over to dump a bunch of M&M’s over the top of her popcorn. He smiles at her with the corner of his mouth.

  “So, what’s on the agenda?” she asks.

  “Double feature that starts with The Mummy.”

  “Nice.”

  “I thought you’d like that.”

  “How can anyone not? Ancient Egypt, the undead, a hilarious sidekick, a librarian who kicks ass…”

  “Is this movie why you wanted to be a librarian when you were ten?”

  Casey glares at him. “Maybe. I also wanted to be able to summon the dead after watching it all summer, so there’s that.”

  Evan chuckles. “You should put that on your résumé after high school. ‘Career aspirations: Raising the Dead.’”

  He glances at her before he even finishes speaking, eyes wide with apology.

  Every conversation inevitably goes this way now. There’s no way to keep Liddy out of it.

  “If you could bring your dad back, would you?” she asks quietly. She tucks her legs up onto the seat and throws a piece of popcorn at him.

  He bats it away. “I don’t even know if he’s alive or dead,” Evan says. “Mom never talks about it, and I never ask. Guess I always thought he was dead because that’s easier than accepting he was a loser who walked out when I was a baby.”

  “Think you’ll ever ask her?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Don’t you want to know?”

  Evan’s face wrinkles in thought. “I don’t want to hurt her. She’s happy with Jack, and he’s the only dad I’ve ever known. No sense in cha
sing a past that I don’t need, is there?”

  “I guess not.”

  “What about you?” he asks as the previews begin to play out on the screen. “Would you bring back your parents?”

  She considers the question. It’s been close to eight years without them now and she’s learned to cope in their absence. The places inside her that used to ache and mourn have been filled by other people—her aunt, Evan, Liddy.

  Liddy, who is trapped in a place between life and death. Liddy, who’s been reaching out, linked because of the accident that killed them both. Not only had she let Liddy’s hand go beneath the waves as the current tugged and pried at them, but she’d also apparently left her behind in the place that came after, too.

  “I’d bring Liddy back,” Casey says, leaning her head against the headrest.

  “Me too,” Evan replies quietly.

  Now, she thinks. I should tell him about Red now. About Liddy. About … everything.

  But as she opens her mouth, the words collide in the back of her throat.

  Evan turns his head, his hair sweeping to the side as he grins at her. “I’m really glad you came.” He pulls out two small bottles of orange soda and hands her one, then tips his to clink it against hers. “To Liddy,” he says. “The sassiest, most loyal friend we could ever have. Thanks for always being there. We know you’re waiting for us on the other side.” He pauses, lifting his arm with a flourish that would make their drama teacher proud. “Want to add anything?”

  Casey shakes her head, her throat thick. “To Liddy,” she whispers, turning her attention to the darkened screen as the movie begins.

  She blinks and the darkness fades to an empty alleyway. Old brick walk-ups with metal fire escapes zigzagging like a rusted maze along their walls tower on either side of her. There’s a dumpster, a tipped-over shopping cart, and a bicycle frame without tires.

  Casey jolts back to reality, hunched over. Evan’s looking at her oddly, so she reaches for the radio dial, turning the volume up a couple notches. It was almost as if she could hear the scuff of shoes against pavement. A shiver crawls across the back of her neck and down her spine.