by Joy Elbel
“BOOO!” one of the lesser members of the coven shouted as we rounded the corner to our lockers. “Did I scare you, Ghost Whisperer?”
I froze in my tracks right there as she cackled straight into my face. From where I stood, I could now see my locker door. It was covered with tissue paper ghosts and standing right beside it with a smirk on her face was Misty Landrum. They weren’t mooing, they were booing. Boo as in ghost. Ghost Whisperer. Me. My secret was out.
10. This is How the Kooky Crumble
Lucas. This all had to be his doing. I racked my brain to remember his last words to me at Something Wick-ed the other day. It was something about how I wanted something from him. I didn’t get the meaning of his words at the time but I certainly did now. He wasn’t just being cocky and arrogant— he was being honest. I did want something from him—I wanted him to keep my secret. But it was too late now. Everyone knew. How much did they know? I scrambled to remember whether or not I’d told Lucas about breaking into the school on Halloween. Did I? There would have been cops here waiting for me if I had, wouldn’t there? I simply stood there dazed as everyone laughed and made fun of me. Zach took hold of my arm and nudged me forward. Numb, I let him lead me past the mob of mockery and into the principal’s office.
Silent. I sat there silent while Zach explained the situation in the hallway to Principal Lascher. Silent while I listened to laughter still ringing throughout the school. Silent while I felt the sense of control I had only moments earlier, disintegrate. Silent while my golden whip crumbled into nothing but gold dust and blew away. Even my darkest days at Trinity were nowhere near this humiliating. Silent. I had no defense for their accusations because they were true. There wasn’t a lie in the entire universe big enough to cover this up, no rug large enough to sweep this all under. Busted. I was totally busted. Life as I knew it was over.
Catatonia. That was the highest level of functioning that I could manage. Even when Principal Lascher asked me direct questions, I couldn’t answer them. I couldn’t speak. Why did I trust Lucas? Everyone—and I mean everyone—warned me not to. For someone so smart, how could I have been so damned stupid? I could practically graph a parabola with my eyes closed, yet I couldn’t see something that must have been obvious to everyone else I knew. Why? Because I listened to my heart instead of my brain. My brain was supposed to be in control. My heart was only supposed to beat because my brain told it to. Somewhere along the way, the two switched roles and now the damage was done. But the longer I analyzed it, the more obvious it became that my heart had always truly been the one in charge. My brain only thought it was. I had to gain control of my emotions. But how?
Getting out of that school, out of that room whose walls were slowly closing in on me—that’s how. “I wanna go home.” They were the first words I’d spoken since the incident began. Even though my words came out as barely more than a whisper, everyone in the room fell silent when I spoke them.
“Your stepmother is on her way to get you now, Ruby,” Mr. Lascher said in the calmest tones I’d ever heard from him. The biggest part of his job was to yell at people. He didn’t seem equipped to handle situations like mine. I wasn’t equipped to handle them either. Hearing those few words of comfort coming from the unlikeliest of sources, I lost it. I mean, totally lost it. Crying doesn’t even begin to describe what I did. I wailed. I bawled like a sick baby. My cries were loud enough to…raise the dead. One corpse in particular.
Clay appeared before me, confused and clearly concerned for me. Question after question flew out of his mouth but I ignored them all. I couldn’t talk to him in front of everyone—he knew that. But even if we were alone, I wouldn’t have responded. Why? Because in that moment I needed a punching bag. I didn’t have Scarlet, or Garnet, or Allison to blame—all I had was Clay. So the one ghost who didn’t deserve my wrath, got it.
I refused to look at him, even as he begged me to do that one very simple thing. The second I saw Shelly’s face, my catatonia disappeared. I practically threw my car keys at Zach’s head, ran out the door, and never looked back. But as I got into her car, so did Clay. With all of my tormentors far from view, I unleashed every ounce of anger I felt—and I unleashed it all on him.
“Stay away from me! This is all your fault! If it weren’t for you, I’d be normal! I’d be happy! I wish I’d never seen your stupid face! I’m glad you’re dead and I don’t care who killed you! Go back to the cemetery where you belong—stay there until you rot! I don’t ever want to see you again!”
Shelly, clearly now armed with the truth about me, warily asked, “Ruby, who are you talking to?”
Finally, I looked Clay in the eyes. “Nobody, Shelly, nobody.”
The look in those eyes as he disappeared would haunt me far worse than any other ghost possibly could. Shelly’s words from months ago rattled around in my brain as I mustered up the courage to tell her everything. “Lies have a way of revealing themselves.” The lies I had under my belt at the time she said that were nothing when compared to the whoppers I’d racked up in the meantime. She and Dad knew the truth about what happened over the summer, but nothing beyond that. I had over six months and two ghost’s worth of lies to reveal now. This wasn’t going to be pretty. If confession truly is good for the soul, I was about to reach saintly status.
I made Shelly wait until we got home to hear the whole sordid story. I made her wait until I had a steaming hot cup of hot chocolate with triple the recommended number of marshmallows floating around on the surface. I made her wait until I couldn’t think of any more excuses for making her wait. Then, I took a deep breath and dove into the truth.
For the most part, she just sat back and listened. She interjected here and there for clarification and the occasional “Oh my God, Ruby! Why didn’t you tell us what was going on?” but she never once made me feel like a freak. I didn’t really need her to—everyone else already did that job quite well for me. I gave her every detail about Scarlet, Garnet, and Allison. The one ghost I didn’t want discuss was Clay—the most important one of all. I lashed out at him in a moment of raw anger. The old saying was true—you always hurt the ones you love. While I didn’t love Clay in the same way I loved Zach, he was definitely special to me. He deserved an apology. A huge apology. He was one of the best friends I’d ever had—until I went totally cray-cray on him. Why did I always seem to do the stupidest things?
“So you were talking to someone in the car? Who was it?” Shelly quickly cast a furtive glance over her shoulder. “And are they here now?” she whispered.
“Whispering won’t really do you any good, Shelly. They’re dead not deaf. And no, he isn’t here—and I certainly don’t blame him. He didn’t deserve any of the things I said to him. I wish I could take it all back.”
“Well, you can’t. I love you like my own daughter, Ruby, but you don’t think before you act—or talk. You need to curb that impulsiveness of yours before you really lose someone you love—for good.”
She was right. She was totally right. All of the fights I had with Zach were spurred by my impulsivity. There went that damned heart of mine, spouting out things before my brain had a chance to censor them. As soon as I was done talking to Shelly, I would have to tell Clay that I was sorry. Until then, at least talking about him made me feel a little bit better.
So, I told her everything about him—from the day I first saw him at Silver Lake, to the night he nearly gave me a heart attack in the tunnels, to how he stayed with me during the time Jonas was holding me captive. The more I talked about the time we’d spent together—both good and bad—the worse I felt about the things I’d said to him. I had to apologize and I had to do it now.
I bolted out of my chair and headed for the grand staircase—impulsively. My conversation with Shelly was far from over—we hadn’t even discussed the fact that I was never setting foot back in that school again for as long as I lived. But talking to Clay was the only thing on my mind. I couldn’t even wrap my brain around everything else until th
at conversation was over and done with.
“Clay!” I called out as I ran up the steps, “Are you ready to race me again?” I looked around for him but found nothing. “I hear you run like a girl,” I taunted to try to coax him out. Still nothing. What about the bond we shared? When I wanted rid of him—even just for the time being—he always seemed to be lingering somewhere close by. Now, when I needed him most, he was gone. And I felt alone.
I spent most of the day sitting in bed contemplating my situation. What was I going to do? There was no way that I could ever dare show my face in this town again. Ever. Zach had saved me from countless dangers since I first moved to Charlotte’s Grove but there was one thing he couldn’t save me from—humiliation.
This was far worse than the locker room video incident. Far. Worse. At least I was able to come up with a plausible excuse for my behavior that day. But there was no way to talk my way out of this. Lucas saw what happened that night in the bell tower. Even if he couldn’t see Allison, he knew that she was there. He knew that I wasn’t crazy. He knew that my ability to see ghosts was real and not just all in my head. When I told him my secret, he believed every word I said—I knew that he did. But none of that mattered now. Even if I shouted it from the roof tops, no one would want to hear my story. No one would want to hear the truth. If I asked Zach and Rachel to back me up on this, they would be branded as freaks, too. I couldn’t ask them to do something like that. Just being associated with someone like me was damaging enough to their reputations. I had to find a way to hide until it was time to leave for Pendleton.
My phone buzzed with an incoming text just as a brilliant idea hit me. When I saw that the message was from Zach, I got even more excited. He was going to be just as excited to hear my news as I was to tell it to him. I barely stopped to read what he said and certainly didn’t even attempt to answer his questions. All I did was type two words and hit send.
“Cyber school.” I was a super genius! It was the answer to all of my prayers. If I had only thought of this as an option way back when Misty filmed me in the shower, I could have avoided the ugly incident in school today. And I never would have said all of those mean things to Clay. I called his name again but still nothing. Was he staying away because he hated me? Or was it possible that when I told him that I never wanted to see him again, I somehow sent him away for good? Was there a dark place somewhere, a place for those who hadn’t moved on but were unwelcome on earth as well? Oh Dear God I hope not! As soon as I got my response from Zach, I was calling Rita to find out.
“R u sure that’s what u wanna do?” was his reply. Was I sure? Umm…duh. Of course, I was sure! As long as I finished high school in some manner, I didn’t think my dad would care how I did it. It was the perfect plan. Fool. Proof. I replied with a simple “yes” and immediately called Something Wick-ed to get Rita’s opinion of Clay’s absence. Once I heard her answer, I wished that I hadn’t.
“In case you haven’t noticed, Ruby, spirits are far more human than any of the other entities you’ve faced. They can’t feel physical pain, of course, but they have the same kind of feelings and emotions that they had when they were still alive. Clay isn’t in some dark purgatory right now—he’s staying away from you because you hurt his feelings. I would bet that he is still somewhere near you but keeping out of sight. He may be more sensitive than you realize—he may not want you to see that he’s been crying.”
“Thanks, Rita—you just made me feel a whole lot better,” I said sarcastically. Another wave of impulsiveness struck and I added a quick, “Oh, and I quit,” before ending the call. Quickly, I turned off my phone and tossed it onto my bed. In a fit of exasperation, I buried my head in my pillow and screamed as loud as I could. WTF? Could my day possibly get any worse? I wanted to scream until I went mute. Then I wanted to grab Misty by her flaxen extensions, throw her into a shark tank, and watch patiently until she got her period. Who was I kidding? With my luck, she was on that birth control where you only get your period once a year. Joke’s on Ruby yet again. And besides, as far as I know, sharks aren’t cannibalistic. Misty would be in there swimming gracefully with her own kind while I sat there wondering why the karma bus kept running me over instead of her.
So within a matter of a few hours, I’d decided to quit school, quit my job, and I made a ghost cry. All of this because Lucas couldn’t keep his damned mouth shut about the fact that I could communicate with the dead. And in turn, all because Misty wouldn’t give up on sinking her fangs into Zach. If it weren’t for the fear that they would haunt me silly, I would add them both to the list of those resting not so peacefully. The emotional strain was too much for me to take. My fragile teenage psyche had suffered enough trauma for one lifetime. I decided to do something drastic—take a nap. I already felt as broken down and useless as a nursing home patient so I might as well sleep in the middle of the day like one, too. But I still wasn’t ready for that gross tapioca pudding old people liked to eat. It was the stuff nightmares were made of. That was the last thought that floated through my brain before I fell asleep. Cue the irony.
While I was smart enough to know that just thinking about tapioca pudding wouldn’t actually give me nightmares, I rationalized that it had to be the reason why I had the worst dream I’d had in a long time. The dream was super vivid and I woke up crying. I dreamed about the white dog again—the dog I’d come to know as my subconscious mind’s symbolization of Clay. The dog kept whining and prancing as it tried to find a way to cross the river to be with me. Regardless of his feelings for me, Clay understood that there was no way we could ever be a couple, didn’t he? Maybe he did and that was the most frustrating part for him—knowing that there was a line that he could never cross no matter how hard he tried. I felt so bad for the dog—for Clay—but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Even if I did feel the same way about him, I certainly wasn’t going to pull a Juliet so that I could spend the rest of eternity wandering the grounds of the Heaven’s Gate Cemetery with him. No offense to love or anything, but I’d learned one thing since Lee’s death—life really does go on after you lose someone.
My heart broke as I watched that dog howl and whine as it frantically tried to find a safe place to cross the river. I couldn’t take it anymore. I crept up to the red water’s edge straight across the bank from it and knelt down with my knees in the snow. The only thing I could do was try to talk to it and make it understand that it couldn’t come to me and that I couldn’t cross to meet it, either. Once down at the dog’s eye level, I caught its gaze and held it there silently for a moment. It had the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen in an animal—there was clearly human intelligence behind them. In a soft, soothing voice, I spoke to it. And it listened to me.
“You can’t cross here. The river is too wide, too turbulent—you’ll be swept away in the current if you try. Stay over there where it’s safe. Please!”
The dog threw its head back and released a howl that any wolf would be proud of. As its cries resounded through the still air, it became more of a guttural noise—one of physical pain, not emotional. Then I saw it. Blood began to trickle down from the spot where its heart would be. There were no wounds, no visible cause for the bleeding. I got up and ran, the sound of its yelps growing ever fainter behind me. Inside, I knew that what I had just witnessed was that dog’s heart breaking—literally.
My nap was anything but refreshing. I sat up and called Clay’s name repeatedly as soon as I woke up, but saw no trace of him. How long would he stay away? If that dream was an accurate indicator of how he felt, he may never talk to me again. Ever. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t mean to break his heart. If Rita was right and he was somewhere nearby, he would already know just how sorry I was for the things I said to him. I was sorry. Why wasn’t that enough for him? If he never came back, I would have to find my own peace in the matter. Why did I have to go and alienate one of the few friends I still had left on the same day that I needed him the most? I gave myself the mother of all e
ye rolls and flopped back down on my bed.
11. Ghost of a Chance
When I heard the sound of footsteps approaching the attic, I assumed that it would be Shelly with a bowl full of pity ice cream to make me feel better. Not the case at all. Not only did she not have any creamy goodness to try to coax me out of my funk, she actually gave me something else to want to pity myself for.
“Put on some shoes and come downstairs. Your dad’s home and he is fuming.” Great, just great. Hadn’t I already taken enough abuse for one day? Reluctantly, I did as I was told and trudged down the steps behind her. Slowly.
By the time I got to the second floor landing, I could see my father pacing back and forth in the foyer impatiently. Suddenly, I questioned why Shelly asked me to put on shoes before leaving the attic. Was it because she knew that he was going to kill me instantly? Morticians probably had a difficult time wedging shoes onto their clients’ cold, hard feet. Was she trying to do me one last dignity by allowing me to select my choice of post-death footwear? She knew how much I loved my shoe collection—and yes, I did think of it as a collection. If she’d only been less subtle about it, I would have given more thought to what I put on. I was about to turn around and grab my gray boots instead when my dad spotted me.
“Ruby! Where are you going? Get down here—I don’t have all day!” he barked sharply. To the funeral home in my running shoes, apparently. I took a deep breath and continued toward him. By the sounds of things, he wanted to make this quick. Hopefully at least semi-painless was on the agenda, as well.
I walked down the rest of that staircase as though it were The Green Mile. He looked furious. He looked even worse than he did the night he caught Zach in bed with me. Worse than the night he caught Lucas and I emerging from the passageway in my closet. Shelly’s warning that lies had a way of revealing themselves came to the forefront of my mind. I was about to take the wrath for months’ worth of mistruths. A good offense was going to be my best defense.
