Feral

by Schindler,Holly

  Claire’s chest heaved with frightened breath as a familiar old calico jumped from the cemetery wall. The cat bearing the gnarled, brittle look of age, with her knotted spine and legs as stiff as crutches—the cat from the Simses’ woodpile. She blinked her matted, gummy eyes against the frozen mist, and shook her head, sending droplets flying from her whiskers and the torn tip of a partially missing ear. The calico edged toward Serena’s grave, as though wanting to get close enough to pay her respects to the girl.

  The hand of fog continued to climb higher into the sky, to inch closer to Serena, the fingers curling, readying to grasp her soul. To pluck her—like a wayward strand of hair. A wave of renewed terror flashed over Serena’s face—and at the very moment the fog touched her, her terror fired, shooting her spirit high into the sky—high enough to surely see the top of the Peculiar water tower below her.

  Serena paused at the top of her ascent, her face tipped forward, and she fell in a lurch—while the fog struggled to catch up, to grab her.

  The calico at the side of the casket turned her face to the sky only to see Serena speeding toward her—only to fear being crushed by Serena’s fall, with no time to dart out of the way.

  Serena fell through the fingers of the fog, nose-diving into the earth.

  The fall made a noise like a sonic boom that left Claire’s ears ringing and silver sparks of light traveling across her eyes.

  Claire could hear no distant screams of shock coming from anyone left in the cemetery. No stampeding feet. Nothing. Were they all too far away? How was it that no one saw or heard this—only Claire?

  She blinked against the January mist, the savage winter air, letting the scene she’d just witnessed sink in.

  Serena had fallen on top of that awful old calico, knocking the poor creature off her feet. The cat lay, looking every bit as lifeless as Serena had when Claire had first seen her, buried beneath the fallen limb.

  The persistent fog peeled back, like a curtain.

  The cat raised her head, slowly arched her back, and pushed herself from the ground. She raised a paw, peeked down at it, as if seeing it for the first time.

  Claire was rooted as she watched wisps of color float across the surface of the cat’s face. The cat’s face grew hazy, disappearing just long enough to let the image of a girl’s face peek through.

  Serena, Claire thought, the realization hitting her with the brutal force of a club. She didn’t just fall on the cat—she fell inside her.

  The persistent fog continued to swirl above the old calico, like a funnel cloud—as if it, too, knew that Serena was inside.

  “Come,” the fog demanded. “You need to come home.”

  The old calico took a step forward. The fog swirled back and forth above her, bouncing against her body. The cat’s living body was keeping the fog out.

  Blue eyes replaced the cat’s feline yellow eyes. A happy purr trickled out from behind her mangy fur.

  Claire reeled, arms forward, trying to find a way through the mist that cascaded, that swelled, that pushed itself in front of her face, as thick as velvet curtains.

  Muffled voices cried out behind her, calling her name. “Claire!” she heard. “Claire, wait!” But she was trying—couldn’t they all see she was trying to get away from the cat, Serena, the fog—the horrible visions of what happened here in Peculiar? She was trying to get to them, but she was all turned around. Which way was the gate? The fog was too dense, suddenly, to make sense of everything.

  Serena’s in the old cat, she wanted to shout. It sounded crazy—she knew that. But she also knew what she had just seen.

  She staggered, until a hiss made her stop moving completely.

  Claire glanced down, only to look straight into the calico’s mangled face. Claire balled her hands into fists.

  The cat yowled. A bit of hazy light bouncing off the gold cameo at the base of Claire’s throat reflected back onto the pink, raw spots on the cat’s face. The cat rose up onto her back legs, and pawed at the air, attempting, it seemed, to get closer to her. Or, more likely, closer to something that Claire had on her body.

  Claire gasped. Serena wanted her necklace back. The necklace that was stuck hanging from Claire’s throat. Why wouldn’t she? Claire asked herself. It belongs to her.

  Claire threw her foot forward, stomping to scare the old cat away.

  The cat spread her mouth, hissed again, and pounced. She took a swipe at Claire’s ankle, exposed now beneath the hem of her black slacks. She scratched Claire, cutting into her skin with her dirty, disease-laden claws.

  Claire squealed in pain. The squeal turned to a groan of disgust as she stared at a pair of swiveling, jagged, bleeding scratches that burned, tingled, pinched, all at the same time. She swung her arms, hoping to frighten the old cat while at the same time moving in the direction of the muffled voices.

  But in her attempt to get away, Claire felt herself Htumbling—falling, just as Serena had fallen. Her mind spun until her back struck the earth, the blow ricocheting inside her like a hundred tiny pieces of shrapnel. She moaned, wanting to push herself up, but finding that her hands didn’t even feel attached anymore.

  “Claire,” a faint voice cried out—the tone so soft, it had to belong to someone standing a mile away.

  “Claire,” the voice called again, louder this time.

  As she opened her eyes, Rich’s face emerged—he was calling her name, his expression riddled with worry. “Can you hear me?” he asked.

  Claire realized her father was here, too. And the old man from ’Bout Out. And Pastor Ray. All of them staring down on her in fear, through thick billows of fog.

  Claire raised her head, slowly dislodging it from the earth, which felt soft, slightly muddy beneath her. She put her hand out, feeling a cool wall of earth beside her. Another wall of earth on her other side. Walls at her head and feet.

  She was in Serena’s grave.

  Claire opened her mouth and began to scream.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  TWENTY

  “Just raise your arms over your head,” Rich said, his knees pressed into the cold mud at the edge of Serena’s grave.

  “No!” Claire shook her head adamantly. Her throat still burned from her scream. Her arms would burn, too, she knew, if she let him grab onto her recently healed wrists and yank her out.

  Besides, she was weak from what she had seen and from her fall—she’d never get a solid hold on Rich’s hands, not if she could only barely stand. “You’re just as likely to fall in here with me,” she argued, even though it was impossible, given Rich’s size, his undeniable strength. But she could not stop shaking. She didn’t want anyone to see her like this, so shaken and confused by what had just played out in front of her eyes.

  “Use your feet,” Rich said. “When I pull you up, just use your feet to help me. You climb, I pull. Okay?”

  “But—”

  “Claire, you can’t stay in there. Please,” Rich begged.

  Claire relented, only because everyone up top continued to stare at her, and no one else seemed willing to offer another option. She raised her arms, letting Rich wrap his hands around her wrists as she wrapped her own trembling fingers around his. “Okay,” she called, when she felt their hands were locked around each other. She bit down on her lip as he started to tug.

  It hurt every bit as much as she’d expected it to—her fingers throbbed, her arms pulsed as her newly mended fractures were tugged in two different directions: up to the edge of the grave by Rich, and back down to the depths of the earth by the weight of Claire’s body. Her feet scrambled to get a toehold in the smooth wall of Serena’s grave, and she suppressed another scream, even as she swore her breaks were being ripped back apart.

  Mercifully, the tugging ended as Claire’s hips hit the top of the grave. Rich let go. Claire pressed the palms of her hands on something c
old and hard at the head of Serena’s burial place as she struggled to hoist her legs out on her own.

  She panted, moving her hands to find out that a rather elaborate temporary marker had already been placed at the grave—whoever had purchased all those lilies had also provided for a metal sign, pressed flat against the earth, bearing Serena’s name.

  Claire could see herself in the marker—her terror-stricken face seeming to plead for help.

  “Claire,” her father said, rushing to her side. “Claire,” he repeated, helping her to her feet when all she wanted to do was just rest a minute, let the awful torturous ringing in her body settle down.

  “You didn’t hit your head on any rocks down there, did you?” he asked, looking into her eyes.

  But it wasn’t the fall that bothered Claire—it was what had preceded it. “The crazy fog,” she grumbled, scrambling for any explanation. “I just—I couldn’t see where I was going.”

  “The fog?” her dad asked, the pitch of his voice climbing up the scale.

  She glanced out at the cemetery, finding the fog far lighter now than it had ever been since their arrival in Peculiar. Barely a wisp at all, she realized, glancing out among the broken limbs, piled on the opposite side of the cemetery. Tombstones shone out clearly—as did the old general store across the street. The world around her glistened brightly in the mid-morning sun, obscured by nothing. Even the stone wall—Claire swore she could see its most minute details, every different particle of color in the rocks. The world dripped, wet, melting. Muddy. As clear as Dr. Cain always swore the world looked behind a new pair of eyeglasses.

  The pack of ferals was still there, still at the cemetery. But the cats weren’t snarling, weren’t menacing. Drawn by the crowd, Claire, she told herself. That’s all. And by the smell of the garbage. In fact, their faces were all pointed in the same direction: toward the overflowing Dumpster near the church. Garbage still left from the warming center. They meowed, the hungry strays innocently racing each other, trying to be the first to get there, to scavenge.

  But how could the cemetery have changed so drastically—so quickly?

  A hiss poured at her from the wall. When Claire turned, she saw her—the old calico—No, she thought, not the cat. Serena.

  She had something in her mouth—a small gray lump. She lowered her head, dropping it beside her. The mouse began to scurry, racing to make a getaway. But the old cat swooped, dropping down onto her front elbows and covering the mouse with both paws.

  She turned her head to the side and hissed at Claire as if to taunt her.

  The town wasn’t just peculiar—it was sinister. And no one saw it but Claire. But after everything she’d been through, it only made sense that Claire would see the world differently. Didn’t it?

  Casey’s ghost was in the basement. It was clear, too, that no one in Peculiar was dead—their spirits were alive in the fog. And now, Serena’s spirit was staring out at Claire through the eyes of the cat. She freed her mouse once more, only to catch and torture it all over again.

  She smiled wickedly at Claire, the victim she had clearly chosen to play her next game of cat and mouse.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  TWENTY–ONE

  Claire slept fitfully, tossing her sweaty body about beneath the blankets as she dreamed repeatedly of the terrifying events of the Sims funeral.

  Midmorning on Friday, she rolled to her side, hugging her blankets, glad that school had been canceled once more, this time for a “day of reflection.” She wasn’t sure if Becca and Owen had actually seen her fall into the grave—but she did know that small-town word of mouth would have informed them both by now. She also knew that she’d never be able to stand the look Becca would surely flash her, the girl who had been inside Serena’s grave: concern and grief mixed with an unmistakable splash of horror.

  It was almost like cheating death, actually—the idea of being inside a grave and then fished back out. Then again, Claire had cheated death once before. She was good at it.

  The more Claire thought about it, the more it seemed as though Casey and Serena had cheated death, too. Here they both were, two spirits who had somehow outlived their own bodies and somehow escaped the fog, the spirits of the town dead whose job seemed to be ushering the newly dead to the afterlife—whatever that consisted of.

  She knew it—she knew what she’d seen in the cemetery and the basement of Peculiar High. She knew that Casey was talking to her. People get hurt when they’re not where they’re supposed to be, he’d told her, all while showing her the alley that had led to the parking lot where she’d been hurt—the alley that Dr. Cain had no idea Claire would try to use as a shortcut. Serena was talking, too—the way she’d shown herself to Claire at the funeral, and even when Claire had found her body. The way the world had switched up on Claire back in the woods, the way she’d felt certain she was staring into her own brutalized face and not Serena’s—Claire felt absolutely certain that Serena was behind that, every bit as much as Casey was responsible for the Peculiar basement turning into a Chicago alley. Casey and Serena were manipulating the surroundings in order to get Claire’s attention, to tell her something. At least, that was what she hoped. But that awful look on the cat’s face back at the cemetery hadn’t begged for help. It had threatened.

  Claire knew, too, that if she told anyone any of this, they’d back away from her slowly, the same way she would have backed away from an injured tiger that had escaped from the zoo.

  Sure, it sounded crazy. If Claire hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she would have thought it was crazy. But it wasn’t her—it was the town—this awful town. She also knew she had to keep the real Serena story to herself until she figured it out—until she saw the full picture. She’d learned that after she’d spread the story of what happened to Rachelle on the Chicago evening news. You kept your mouth shut until you made sure no one was on your tail. You kept your mouth shut until you knew everything.

  She pulled herself from her bed, headed downstairs, and found Dr. Cain curled over his computer at the kitchen table.

  “You didn’t go to work?” she asked.

  Dr. Cain smiled at her. “I had a bunch of paperwork to get done. Notes to be transcribed.”

  Claire touched her queasy stomach. She could smell a lie on her father, every bit as clearly as soured milk. He was worried. He’d stayed to keep an eye on her.

  “I planned to meet Rich this morning,” she lied.

  “After yesterday?” he said, his face drooping. “Don’t you think you should stay and rest?”

  “I’m fine,” she said hastily. Why didn’t anyone seem to realize that there was nothing restful about being stared at as though you were about to crack and shatter? She hadn’t liked Rachelle looking at her that way, and she didn’t like her father looking at her that way now.

  “How’s that bump?” Dr. Cain asked, standing and reaching for the back of Claire’s head.

  Claire fought the urge to let out an exasperated sigh. She bristled against being babied.

  “Oh, please,” Claire said, rolling her eyes. “It’s just a bruise.” She hugged her dad tightly, grabbed a banana off the counter for breakfast, and scooted out of the kitchen, up the stairs.

  She dressed quickly, tossing on a pair of jeans that rubbed like sandpaper against her ankle. The scratches that cat had given her were more tender than she’d expected them to be.

  No, she corrected herself, the scratches Serena gave me. She paused, eyeing herself in her bedroom mirror as she prepared to tug a baggy black sweater on over her head. The cameo still dangled from her throat. Knowing the necklace had belonged to Serena gave Claire an undeniable urge to get to the bottom of whatever Serena had been investigating in the days leading up to her death. Had Serena seen Casey? Had she known about the town dead when something happened to her? Was that why she didn’t want to
go with the fog? Or was she unwilling to go because she had unfinished business here on earth?

  Maybe, Claire thought, Serena’s business had something to do with her.

  She shuddered, remembering again the fiendish look Serena had flashed her, shining through the cat’s ancient face as she sat atop the cemetery wall. Cat and mouse . . .

  “Can’t be,” Claire said, dismissing the thought as she tugged her sweater on the rest of the way. “What could she possibly have against me? I haven’t done anything to her.

  She finished dressing and thundered back down the stairs. “See you later, Dad!” Claire called out, sliding into her naval trench and hurrying through the front door before her father could say anything else.

  When Rich appeared in his own doorway, Claire felt any remaining queasiness lift from her gut. There was something about him that made her feel like she could talk to him, really talk, like she could blurt out all those thoughts that had just been racing through her head, and that he would help her—without judgment.

  Not yet, she reminded herself. You don’t have the whole story yet.

  What she did wind up blurting was, “My scratches are really sore. And we don’t have anything to put on them. Thought you might.”

  “What scratches?” he asked through a frown.

  “On my ankle. That cat—one of the ferals—scratched me yesterday, at the cemetery. That’s why I fell in that grave. I was trying to avoid her. I don’t want them getting infected.”

  “Let’s take a look,” he said, stepping out on the front porch and squatting down toward her, ankle level.

  Claire hiked the leg of her jeans. A sense of relief flooded her—a kind of peace that she had not known, not since that awful day last spring. All because she’d shown Rich a silly little wound.

  “They’re a little red,” he assessed, staring at her scratches. “That can actually be dangerous—you could get cat scratch fever.”

  “That’s not a real disease,” Claire said. “That’s some old song.”