Paying the Price

by Maria Quick

  ‘My dad, chill. He’s coming to pick me up.’

  Message sent, there was nothing to do but wait in the presence of three angry ghosts. I decided to finally acknowledge the newcomer to the party.

  ‘Hey, Leesha. How’s it going?’

  See? Nice, polite. I asked her how she was.

  ‘Just because I’m dead, it doesn’t mean I like you,’ was her retort.

  Why’d I bother?

  ‘You want my help or not?’

  ‘Not.’

  ‘No! She does, we do. You are helping me this time. I will not let you leave me here again. I don’t care how long it takes. David is going to jail, and you’re gonna put him there,’ Izzy demanded.

  ‘What if I can’t?’

  ‘You can. And you will.’

  Sounds very inspirational, but it was more of a threat. I don’t take kindly to threats. I don’t take kindly to Izzy, either. The first time we met, she was utterly unimpressed with me. Okay, I was only ten years old, but most lucies are actually thrilled that I can see them. Izzy? She snorted at me and told me I looked fat in my dress. Again, I was ten. That could’ve caused some serious issues. Instead, it made me loathe her right from the outset.

  Things didn’t improve from there. After insulting me for a solid five minutes, she’d given me graphic details about her murder and then told me where David lived, fully expecting me to go confront him. I will repeat, I was ten. Unsurprisingly, I’d chosen not to get myself killed and she’d left in a huff. She came back a couple years later and repeated the process. And again, two years ago. Mainly, our visits consisted of snide jibes and me telling her where to go, and then she’d threaten to come back. Each time, I only grew more sympathetic for David.

  But hey, I have met a lot of lucies I completely despised and I still helped them. I had to. It wasn’t simply that I hated Izzy’s guts. There was no evidence. And I was guessing this was the case yet again.

  ‘Other than a fresh kill, what else you got?’

  Leesha’s eyes narrowed but she let Izzy do the talking.

  ‘He slipped up. He made a mistake. He dropped the pantyhose.’

  ‘Wait, what?’

  Izzy had been strangled to death with her own pantyhose. David had then taken them with him, and he’d kept them this entire time. It was the only real evidence linking David to Izzy. That meant the cops couldn’t tell what she was strangled with, and it prevented them from labelling him the Pantyhose Killer, which would’ve been even more depressing for poor David.

  I had a burning question on my mind.

  ‘Why were you were wearing pantyhose?’ I asked Leesha, staring at her jeans.

  ‘I wasn’t! He already had them in his pocket.’

  ‘He’s kept them in his pocket this entire time,’ Izzy added, staring at me. ‘Every time a woman looks at him the wrong way, he holds them.’

  Well, everyone has a comfort blanket.

  ‘Okay, where did he drop them?’ I asked out the corner of my mouth, just as my dad pulled up.

  I was trying not to look at them, but I did notice that Izzy and Leesha shared a look.

  ‘What?’ I hissed.

  ‘Down a grate,’ Izzy said.

  ‘A great what?’ George asked.

  ‘Just a grate. They’re in the sewers.’

  Which was just great for me.

  5

  ‘How’d it go?’ my dad asked, when we were alone in the car. Just kidding. The three amigos were bunched together on the backseat, arms still folded like they’d fallen into a vat of glue and were stuck like that.

  ‘Fine. We talked a little and I’m going back next week.’

  ‘Not if I need you, you’re not,’ Izzy growled. Ugh, kill me now. Or her, preferably.

  ‘Did she... give you anything?’

  ‘Pills? Yeah, she did, Dad. You know she did.’

  ‘Hold up! Why are you taking pills?’ she screeched.

  ‘So she can stop seeing us. Her dad-’ George valiantly attempted.

  ‘No, you stop taking them right now,’ she yelled, jabbing a finger in my face. I tried not to flinch.

  ‘It’s not like she has a choice,’ he hissed. ‘She-’

  ‘Sure she does. Just say no.’

  My God, it was so simple, why hadn’t I thought of that?

  Meanwhile my dad was chatting about something or other; I think the gist of it was that he wanted to make himself feel good by making me take them. It was getting hard to concentrate. Izzy’s voice is like listening to an opera-singing cat in a juicer. And she was still ordering me to stop taking medication and do her bidding. I had to save myself here, in the only way I knew how: making myself look crazy.

  I put the radio on.

  ‘...you know that, right?’ my dad finished.

  ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over all this noise,’ I emphasized, shooting a quick glare at Izzy. Dad blinked slowly.

  ‘Then, why don’t you turn the radio back off?’ he asked, like he was asking me to step away from the edge of a cliff.

  ‘You’re right, that’s a good idea. I will stop it,’ I hissed, turning it off. Izzy glowered at me.

  ‘So, did you take a pill while you were there?’

  Subtle, Dad. Real subtle.

  ‘Yes, she watched me take it. Ask her if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘I do,’ he lied. He quickly changed the subject. ‘What did you two talk about?’

  Ooh, quickly change the subject back. I was not getting into that now, not with Izzy and Leesha ready to claw my throat out.

  ‘Just things, Dad. My feelings and stuff. Look, these pills make me drowsy and I’m kinda tired. Can we just not talk for the rest of the drive?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, immediately parking and turning off the ignition. He gave me a funny look. ‘We’re home.’

  Right.

  I let Izzy and Leesha wander around my home, since there was absolutely no way of my preventing that anyway, and gathered the supplies I’d need for the next few hours. Unfortunately, my father didn’t own a shotgun and we were straight out of nooses, so, I’d have to choose the next best thing. Candy bars and Doritos.

  And I totally didn’t choose Izzy’s favorite flavor, either. Honest.

  My dad had decided that I wasn’t any crazier than I had been two hours earlier, so he’d headed off to work. I was left to suffer in- not silence, because I will complain loudly and fruitlessly.

  ‘So, why do you hate Izzy so much?’

  And of course, George wanted the scoop. Which reminded me, so did I. I headed for the freezer.

  ‘Because she’s a total jerk and made David’s life a misery. Did you know that she snuck into the boys’ locker room, took a Polaroid of him showering and passed it around their entire school?’

  ‘A Polaroid?’ he frowned. ‘Man, how hipster is she?’

  ‘Hipster? She died in the eighties. Did you not see her Frankie Say Relax tee and her crimped hair?’

  ‘Well, obviously, but I thought she died at a rave or something. I thought she was doing it ironically.’

  ‘She doesn’t do ironic,’ I told him, shaking my head. ‘She does do evil and conniving, though.’

  Alright, I had ice cream, chips and chocolate. All I needed now was soda and I could hopefully contract diabetes and suddenly go into a coma. That’d be swell.

  ‘So, wait. He killed her at school?’

  ‘No, her house. It was the morning after prom. Everybody’d voted him Prom King and her Queen, then she pulled his pants down on stage and everybody laughed. That was only the very, very tip of the iceberg. Cannot say I blame him one bit.’

  ‘Oh come on!’ he cried, instantly on the opposite side of whatever I was. ‘I mean... she’s trying to make amends.’

  ‘No, she is not. She is a bitch, George. She died as a bitch and she never grew out of it.’

  ‘And all she wants now is peace. She has been here for almost forty years. Isn’t it time you gave her that?’

 
; ‘And again, no, she does not. She is only doing this to screw with David one more time before she gives up the ghost, so to speak. If you’d met him, you’d be on my side.’

  ‘Have you met him?’

  ‘Well, no. But she’s told me about him, plenty of times. He is the type of guy you instantly feel sorry for. I mean, think about it. He is a loser in school. He has hopes and dreams of getting away from it all, and then he kills Izzy in a fit of rage. He can’t think about anything else. He is tied to that one moment of his life. He was a computer whiz, apparently. This is obviously before computers were big. He should’ve been a CEO at Microsoft by now. Instead, he’s stuck flitting between crappy jobs, depressed and alone. His life was over before it had even begun.’

  Believe me, Izzy’d told me millions of stories of David. And in doing so, she’d not painted the prettiest picture of herself. It’s crazy. Usually, lucies tend to explain away their evildoings. Try to, anyway. Not Izzy, though. She admitted that she was the Queen Bee, and she still thinks she is that. She thinks that I should be throwing myself at her feet, begging to do her dirty work. Look, things have changed since Izzy was at school. I know that, you know that. “It” girls aren’t looked up to as they were. She doesn’t realize that, no matter how many times I’ve told her.

  It’s weird because I didn’t have a girl like Izzy at school. I had a few who were popular, but no sole queen. Even on the guy’s side, Brandon was an asshole in a group of assholes. Things aren’t so clear-cut now. Everybody’s dealing with new issues. Things are realer than they ever were. Nobody has time for that.

  So, dealing with Izzy was both surreal and at the same time, kinda wanted to punch her in the face.

  If I ever found a way to harm lucies, she would be the only one on the list.

  ‘I have a question,’ George said, as I debated whether I needed cookies. ‘He sounds like Vince.’

  ‘That wasn’t a question.’

  ‘Okay,’ he sighed. ‘Why do you feel sympathy for David and not Vince?’

  Why does anybody do anything? If you’re just joining us, Vince was a guy we met recently, who was severely lacking in a personality. He was lacking in anything that made up a person, essentially. He was Buzz Killington’s duller, forgotten brother. The reason I feel sorry for David and not him is that David had had a chance. It is the nightmare of every kid who has ever been bullied to still be thinking about your bullies, years after you should’ve left them behind. And it’s worse for David because nobody else will ever see what he saw. He will just be labelled as a killer, and Izzy is forever a victim now. The tables have been turned.

  It’s not nice, to put it lamely.

  ‘Because Vince was basically dead the second he was born. David’s life was ripped out of his fingers. It’s cruel.’

  ‘Okay, let’s say I agree with you about that,’ George ventured, in no way actually agreeing. ‘You’re forgetting about one other thing. Her boyfriend.’

  ‘Chuck? Glad you asked. He bullied David just as much as she did. He slashed the tires on David’s bike so much that he couldn’t afford to get new ones any more. He threw a lit cigarette at his hair, forcing him to get a buzz cut and scarring his neck. He-’

  ‘Alright, alright. I get it,’ George cringed, looking a little uneasy.

  Chuck wasn’t just arrested for her murder. He had a whole catalog of offences. DUIs, possession of drugs, assault. He was the type of guy that’d be in and out of jail anyway. His wrongful arrest for Izzy’s murder actually just saved everyone a whole lot of time.

  ‘What did Izzy even tell you about her case?’

  ‘Not much,’ he shrugged, ‘only that you had a crush on David and you never wanted to help her, and that she was a victim.’

  Sounds about right.

  ‘You were speaking for like twenty minutes. She didn’t say anything else?’

  ‘It was a lot of the same thing,’ he said.

  Again, sounds like Izzy.

  ‘If what you’re saying is right, then I wonder what Leesha did?’

  ‘Who says I did anything?’ came a snarl from the doorway.

  Yep, I needed cookies alright. Time to see what David’s latest blameless victim had to say.

  6

  ‘I cannot believe you live in a house like this,’ Leesha sniffed, looking around appraisingly but pretending not to. It’s exactly what George did the first day he was here, too.

  They were following me upstairs, as I concentrated on not dropping my haul. Izzy had had a lot to say about that, too. Mainly, that I was fat and eating myself into an early grave.

  Hear, hear.

  ‘Why not? You knew I was rich.’

  ‘Yeah, but rich is one thing. This place is like a palace. I feel like there should be security guards or something. Is that chandelier pure crystal?’

  I had a chandelier? Oh, apparently I did. One hanging right there on the hallway ceiling, which I walked past every day of my life.

  I should take more notice of things.

  ‘Uh, nope? I don’t know. Why would I know that?’

  ‘What are all these trophies for?’ she asked, peering into one of my dad’s many trophy rooms. I had none of my own, naturally.

  ‘My dad played football at college. Now, he teaches a college team of his own. They’ve won a few things.’

  And paid for our house and cars.

  ‘Right! He destroyed his knee, didn’t he? Real bad injury. I remember that,’ Izzy nodded, gazing at a photo of him as we passed.

  ‘Yeah, that’s because I told you- wait, no I didn’t. How did you know that?’ I asked sharply, dropping my cookies. Yep, shouldn’t have taken them.

  ‘I saw it. David went to the game with his brother, so I followed. I hate football. It was so boring up until that moment.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad my dad’s life-changing injury brought you some joy. Oh my God, you’re older than my dad. That’s so weird.’

  ‘Mmhmm. Now before I get even older, can we finally get on with ruining David’s life forever?’ she asked, as we finally reached my bedroom. I dumped my anti-apocalypse haul on the bed and readied myself. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

  ‘Okay, first of all, Leesha-’

  ‘Oh my God, you have a balcony?’ she screeched, immediately flying over to it.

  To it, not over it, unfortunately.

  ‘Yeah, anyway-’

  ‘Oh my God, you have a hot tub in your backyard?’

  Ah, yes, the lesser used hot tub. Only recently used by Stacy, and I could do without thinking of that, thank you very much. George frowned, heading over to Leesha.

  ‘Where? I swear, I’ve looked over this yard for the last six months and I have not seen it.’

  ‘Right here, right under the balcony. Blink and you miss it kinda deal, I guess.’

  ‘Great. Anyway-’ I tried again, to be immediately foiled. Even Izzy got in on the action too, heading over to stare at a damned glorified rock pool.

  ‘Why is it there? Why not over there in the sun, or next to the trees?’ George critiqued.

  ‘You studied Ancient Civilizations, not modern ones,’ I reminded him, annoyed. ‘My dad built it, anyway. It was a gift for my mom after their honeymoon. They’d gone to Fiji, on a private island, and my mom loved it so much that- why am I telling you this? Just get over here now, all of you.’

  They took one last look at the stupid puddle before finally coming back into the sanctity of my room, thoroughly irritated. Make that four of us.

  ‘What?’ Izzy snapped.

  ‘Leesha, David had a reason to kill Izzy, so what did you do to get yourself killed?’

  Sure, I could have asked it a different way, but where was the fun in that? After her encyclopedic knowledge for curses had been established, she finally settled for a glare.

  ‘I didn’t do anything. He was following me home.’

  ‘That’s right!’ Izzy agreed, pouncing on her reason. ‘I saw him. He was walking home and he had his eye on her.’<
br />
  Ah, there we go.

  ‘You mean he lived close to Leesha and he was innocently walking home?’

  Leesha shot me a glare, and began walking randomly around my room, totally not annoying me.

  ‘No. I was on a date, and afterwards, this David guy followed me and killed me.’

  I closed my notebook shut and patted it.

  ‘Well, that’s all the information I need, thanks. Can you be a bit more specific on all of that?’

  She whipped her head around so hard, her locs would’ve taken her eyes out if she’d been alive.

  ‘This is difficult, alright? You think I want to be in this position? I am dealing with stuff you wouldn’t believe,’ she shuddered.

  ‘You think I want to be in this position?’ I countered. I tried to soften my temper, since George was giving me one of his frowns. Man, was it hard. ‘Look, I know neither of us want to be here. But the only way to stop this is to give me all the gory details so I can go ruin David’s life for real. Start again.’

  George’s frown deepened. What? I tried.

  It worked a little, anyway. Leesha tugged at her hair again and walked around even quicker.

  ‘Like I said, I was on a date.’

  ‘Where?’ I asked. She was wearing a pretty similar outfit to George, and from what I could see, she wasn’t wearing makeup.

  ‘A sports bar. Leo’s. You heard of it?’

  Um, sure.

  ‘Totally. Wait, don’t you have to be 21 to go to a sports bar?’

  I could’ve sworn she was around my age. And she looked it.

  ‘According to my fake ID, I am 21,’ she shrugged nonchalantly.

  I shared a baffled look with George. Where do you even get a fake ID from? And why am I so uncool that I don’t know about this? Truth be told, I was kinda jealous. Fake IDs would’ve saved me a lot of trouble over the years.

  ‘Right. So, hot date at a sweaty sports bar. What happened then?’

  I jotted down bits of info as she gathered her thoughts.

  ‘My mom walked in and saw us. She hit the roof. She doesn’t approve.’

  ‘Of what?’ I asked, looking up.

  ‘Drinking or dating. Her mom is super conservative,’ Izzy butted in. I was surprised it’d taken her so long, actually. She loves the sound of her own voice. Unfortunately, it makes me want to puke.