Feral

by Schindler,Holly

  She glanced up, straight into the heat of Owen’s glare. She wondered, for a moment, if he was going to say something about the test that he’d seen her running from.

  Above them, Rich’s large feet clomped about Serena’s bedroom.

  Mrs. Sims flinched, clutched her cardigan around her throat, and took a step toward the kitchen door, her eyes turned toward the ceiling.

  Claire began to ramble, trying to cover up the forceful bangs and distracting Mrs. Sims from her obvious intention to kick Rich out of Serena’s room. “I think this is the perfect way to memorialize your daughter,” she told Mrs. Sims. “With her own words.”

  Claire gulped down the rest of her bitter coffee, just so she could ask, “Mrs. Sims, could you pour me another?” She exhaled deeply, with relief, as Mrs. Sims turned her back to her, toward the coffeepot. It was painful to see her so upset at the idea of someone being up there, in her daughter’s room—yet, in Claire’s mind, the chore was also completely necessary.

  “I guess—I should—” Owen started, pointing for the door.

  “Before you go,” Mrs. Sims said, holding up a finger, “I wanted to ask you a favor.”

  Owen offered a half nod as Mrs. Sims took a deep breath, preparing herself.

  “I need someone—to clean out her locker,” she admitted.

  Claire frowned against the weight of Mrs. Sims’s request. “Why didn’t law enforcement do that?” she blurted. When Owen and Mrs. Sims turned shocked eyes her way, she clarified, “When Serena went missing? Why wouldn’t they have searched her locker?”

  “They did,” Mrs. Sims whispered. “But there was nothing there. Nothing that would help them, anyway. Serena was so fastidious. She—there was nothing there,” she repeated.

  “I see,” Claire mumbled. But in her mind’s eye, she pictured Sheriff Holman’s lazy bulldog jowls. And she wondered what he’d missed.

  Mrs. Sims left the room, coming back with an old cardboard storage container, Serena scrawled across the side in black marker. “I need someone to return her textbooks to the office, and to bring back anything that might be personal. I can’t do it. See—see if Becca will—”

  “No,” Owen urged. “Don’t bother Becca with it. She’s been—” He shook his head. “I’ll do it, Mrs. Sims.”

  It was a kind gesture, Claire thought. Saving Becca from having to empty out her friend’s locker showed a level of compassion that Claire wasn’t sure that Becca really deserved, in light of the way she’d been attacking Owen verbally, accusing him repeatedly of running around on her, of not caring.

  As he stepped through the back door, a brief moment of quiet settled through the kitchen. Another round of shuffling and a loud bang from upstairs made Mrs. Sims frown, ball her hands into fists, and lunge for the doorway.

  “Mrs. Sims, wait!” Claire shouted.

  Serena’s mother had only just swiveled on her heel when a soft rumble filtered through the kitchen.

  “Wait for what?” Mrs. Sims asked.

  “Did you hear that?” Claire asked, her eyes circling the kitchen for the source of the noise.

  But Mrs. Sims continued to stare at the ceiling. “I hear a lot of things,” she muttered.

  Claire picked up on the rumble again—it sounded so content. Like a purr.

  “Do you have a cat?” Claire asked.

  Mrs. Sims shook her head—as if to indicate she hadn’t heard anything or to say she didn’t have a cat, Claire wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.

  Claire’s scalp constricted. “There it is again,” she said.

  Suddenly, in a violent pop, Mrs. Sims’s coffeepot burst. Mrs. Sims shrieked as glass shards scattered across the kitchen; they sparkled in the air, catching the light before raining against the cabinetry and dancing into the porcelain sink. Hot coffee gushed, pouring across the countertop and the laminate floor.

  Before Claire had time to react, a frightened whelp exploded throughout the kitchen.

  Sweet Pea jumped from her hiding spot on the top of the refrigerator. She landed on the floor and scurried straight for Claire.

  She opened her mouth and hissed.

  Claire screamed, drawing her legs up into her seat as Mrs. Sims quickly grabbed a broom and shouted, “Out! Scoot!”

  The cat snarled, threw her front feet forward, and exposed her claws, trying to clutch on to the floor, to fight against the force of Mrs. Sims’s broom.

  Claire screamed again—because she knew what she’d seen at the funeral. She didn’t have to see Serena’s blue eyes or her smile floating about on the cat’s face, like she had at the cemetery. She knew the truth about that cat. She knew that Serena was inside.

  “I’m trying to help you,” Claire whispered. “Why are you so mad?”

  But the cat only yowled again.

  “Out! Get out!” Mrs. Sims shouted, opening the back door.

  Sweet Pea hissed, her swollen tail standing up angrily.

  Mrs. Sims pushed the cat outside, slammed the door shut behind her. She propped the broom against the wall, and turned to look at the mess in her kitchen—the shattered glass, the coffee dripping from the countertop. Brown drops had sprayed everywhere, dotting the walls, the cabinetry, the pretty yellow curtains.

  “That pot’s been on day and night lately,” she said apologetically, pushing her hair from her face in an exhausted manner. “I’ve had it for years. Guess it finally gave out.”

  “Where’d the cat come from?” Claire asked. Fear rooted her in her seat as Mrs. Sims reached for a rag.

  “Strays get in through the garage sometimes,” Mrs. Sims said, wiping the last few flyaway strands of hair from her forehead. “Warmer in here. Besides, that cat,” she went on, her eyes growing wet and her voice quiet, “she followed Serena everywhere. Here to this house, and to our old house, too. Serena fed her at both places, but mostly at the old house, I think. Sometimes, it seemed my girl spent most of her time there—because she liked it better. She didn’t think I knew that, but I did. I think she even tried to make a bed for the cat, inside our old house. Sweet Pea. Serena used to call her that.”

  Sweet—the word rang out sarcastically in Claire’s mind.

  Her eyes landed on the wainscoting again. SS. Serena Sims.

  Claire trembled. That cat’s not looking for Serena, she thought. That cat is Serena. Even her mother doesn’t hear her, doesn’t recognize her. No one in this town can see her. Everyone just dismisses her, like they dismiss Casey. Pranks, they say. Coincidences. They don’t know. But I do. I know it’s real. I’m the only one. Getting to the truth about Serena is all on me.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  TWENTY–EIGHT

  Claire removed her coat and reached for the dishrag hanging from the handle of the half-open silverware drawer. She turned her back to Mrs. Sims and fastened the top button on her blouse to keep the cameo hidden. If Serena was after her necklace, Claire didn’t want to give it away—not even to a grieving Mrs. Sims. She wanted that cat to keep coming to her. The cat knows the truth, she thought. No—Serena knows the truth. About this horrible town. And Casey and the crazy things that happen here. I have to fix this. I have to make it right. Serena wants me to make it right. I can’t do anything that would send her away, or make her think I wasn’t invested in her story.

  She was on her hands and knees, wiping up coffee, and Mrs. Sims was sweeping wet glass shards into tiny dangerous-looking mounds, when Rich entered the kitchen.

  “What happened?”

  “Coffeepot exploded,” Mrs. Sims explained.

  Still looking bewildered, Rich grabbed a towel and squatted beside Claire. “There’s no story on her laptop,” he muttered. “I looked for notes—handwritten notes—through all her desk drawers. Nothing.”

  “What about her phone?” Claire whispered.

  Rich shook his head. “I can’t find it.”

&nb
sp; “Mrs. Sims?” Claire asked. “Would you have any idea where Claire’s phone is?”

  Wrinkles deepened around the corners of Mrs. Sims’s lips. Claire thought for a moment that the lines around her mouth were deep enough to cast shadows. “I don’t care about things like that,” she confessed. “Maybe those things mean something to you two, but—that didn’t have anything to do with my life with Serena. Of all the things I’ll miss, that’s—” She leaned her broom against the counter, placed a glass-filled dustpan on the cold stovetop. “Excuse me,” she said, and hurried from the kitchen, her face twisted as she attempted to mask the new round of tears beginning to stream down her cheeks.

  “Mrs. Sims,” Claire called, as she started after her. “I didn’t want—”

  Rich grabbed Claire’s elbow. “Just clean the kitchen,” he advised. “I’ll help. We can let ourselves out.”

  The next morning, two days shy of the one-week anniversary of Serena Sims’s funeral, life had returned to normal. At least, that was how it appeared to Claire as Rich drove her to school. Tree-trimming crews had officially finished gnawing away the remnants of the broken limbs. Parents, it seemed, as Claire visited her locker and listened to the chatter of voices making after-school plans, had already let go of the tight holds they’d placed on their daughters during the days when they hadn’t known for sure what had happened to the Sims girl—when they’d feared foul play. It was a bad thing, what happened to Serena. But it had also been an accident—and sometimes, the word “accident” made it easier to fall back into old rhythms, the pulse of life as it had been before.

  The tardy bell rang, allowing the journalism room to settle into a routine as comfortable as a down pillow as students turned on computers and moved freely about the room. Claire glanced up toward the door just as Owen passed by with a large box tucked under his arm, the side branded Serena.

  Claire pushed her chair back and darted into the hallway.

  “Claire!” Rich hissed. “Where are you going? You need a pass. Claire!”

  Claire motioned with her hand for Rich to keep quiet. She hurried forward, out of sight of the journalism door. She trailed Owen around one corner, down a deserted hallway. She slowed as he dropped his box to the floor. He consulted a wrinkled piece of paper—surely, Claire thought, the combination for Serena’s locker, provided by one of the secretaries in the main office. Tucking the paper into his pants pocket, he spun the lock, tugged it free.

  Owen glanced up. “Shouldn’t you be in class?” he asked Claire, swinging the locker door open.

  “Shouldn’t you?” Claire countered.

  Owen shrugged. “I have a good excuse. Nobody’s going to give me detention when they find out I got stuck with this chore.”

  “You could do it after school,” Claire challenged.

  Owen eyed her. “I can’t stand art class. I’m not going to waste my great excuse. If I time it right, I can miss most of it.”

  Claire took another step closer to the locker. It was, as Mrs. Sims had said, immaculate. No pictures or mirrors on the door, no wadded-up homework assignments on the bottom. No Snickers wrappers. Her textbooks stood up on the top shelf, looking like books in a library, spines facing outward. A fleece sweatshirt hung on the hook.

  “After you left, Mrs. Sims told me—she didn’t know where Serena’s phone was. She wanted me to tell you,” Claire started. She hadn’t known what she would say to Owen when she started talking; her lie only began to knit itself together as she rambled on. “She wanted me to bring her phone back, because—”

  “Why would Mrs. Sims care about Serena’s phone?” Owen argued.

  Claire blushed. “She—I—”

  Owen sighed. “Does it look like there’s a phone here?” he asked, pointing toward the top shelf.

  It wasn’t the shelf Claire was interested in. It was the pockets of the sweatshirt. She started to reach for it, when Owen stepped in between her and the locker, blocking her.

  “Actually, I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Owen asserted.

  Something in his tone gave her goose bumps. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Really. You passed up a good thing, you know.”

  Claire’s mind whirled. “What’re you talking about?”

  “The history test. The one you wouldn’t retake.”

  “What do you care about my test?”

  “Somebody gives you a free pass, you take it. Period.”

  “I’m not into free passes,” she spat back.

  “Bullshit. Everybody’s into free passes,” Owen said. “You know the only thing that counts in life?” he murmured. “The bottom line. That’s it. Not how you got there. The right answer. The number of As. Transcripts.”

  Claire wasn’t sure what to say—or if her tongue still worked. All she could manage was a surprised stare.

  “Some of us aren’t brain trusts. Some of us need a little help. So what? Seems to me, we’ve got a good thing going, with Isles offering just that—a little extra help.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?” she asked, her nerves sparking like the power lines during the ice storm.

  “I figured you were the type to rat us all out,” he said, reaching into the top shelf of the locker. As he pulled his arm back, Claire swore she heard it: laughter, hers and Rachelle’s. And she saw a pencil box in his hand. Covered in lightning bolts.

  “You—heard—I—what?” Claire asked, stepping backward, into a stream of sunlight pouring through a nearby window.

  Only, when she stepped into it, it wasn’t sun at all. It was a thin sheet of ice. A fragile one, that shattered the minute she touched it. Ice shards flew, hitting the air and falling like a sleet storm, clattering against the tile floor. Claire pressed her palm flat against the closest wall, finding that it was now covered in a thicker, two-inch coating of ice.

  The entire hallway glistened. The floor. The walls. The ceiling. Icicles, fat as tetherball poles, clung from the lights. The windows became glazed, so that the sunlight bleeding into the hallway had the same eerie glow as snow beneath moonlight.

  When she tried to get a better look at the entire hallway, her feet slipped.

  Owen reached back into the locker, freed the fleece sweatshirt. An object tumbled from its pocket. The phone, Claire thought. Get it before he can. Find out what’s on it.

  She slid across the floor, nearly squealing with joy when she beat Owen, snatching it up before he had a chance.

  But when her fist closed around it, her fragile bubble of victory burst. She wasn’t yet sure what was in her hand—but she did know with certainty that it wasn’t a phone.

  Before she could get a look at it, her feet slid out from beneath her. Claire struggled like a passenger on a fitful boat, fighting to stay upright, searching for something solid. Her hands flew, but she slammed into the wall, finding herself mere inches from a window, her face reflected in the glass. She blinked at herself, at the sunlight, at the window now instantly and completely devoid of ice.

  Claire panted, confused, as Owen snatched the item out of her hand. “What’s with you?” he asked. “It’s just her inhaler. So what?” He tossed it into his box.

  “There’s no phone here,” he declared, shaking the sweatshirt. He put the box on the floor, and dropped Serena’s textbooks into it, letting the books thud like a gunshot.

  Claire stared down the empty hallway. The tile beneath her shoes was dry. The ice hadn’t melted—it had simply disappeared.

  “What do you say?” Owen asked, as Claire’s head continued to spin. “Truce? About the history test? You get where I’m coming from?”

  Claire nodded limply. What had she just agreed to?

  Owen slammed the locker door and left her standing in the glow from the nearby sconces.

  As his footsteps grew faint, Claire collapsed onto the floor and waited for her body to stop shaking.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  TWENTY–NINE

  Claire tried to slip back into the room unnoticed; she slid into a seat next to Rich, attempting to pretend she’d been right there, in class, all morning.

  Glancing up, Claire was hit full force with their instructor’s disgust. Mavis tightened her mouth as she deepened her glare, tucking her chin down to eye Claire over the top of her wire frames.

  “Leaving my class without a pass gets you a warning this time, Ms. Cain,” she said. “If it happens again, you get nonpaid leave. If you don’t know what that is, ask Rich.”

  Claire turned toward him, eyebrow raised.

  “It’s a pass to go talk to Sanders,” Rich explained.

  Claire nodded. She ached to blurt it all out to Rich—how the hallway had just changed. How she could have sworn she was right back in the midst of the last ice storm. How the entire school had been encased in ice, for a moment. How Sweet Pea had followed her to the Sims house the day before. How Serena needed Claire, because no one—not even Mrs. Sims herself—was willing to believe that Serena could still be here, be part of the earth, be a creature who needed help.

  I hear her; I can help her, she ached to say.

  But she couldn’t. The words stuck in her throat. All she could think of was the way the ice in the hallway had appeared and shattered with her discovery of Serena’s inhaler.

  “How bad was Serena’s asthma?” she asked instead.

  “Pretty bad, actually,” Rich said. Even worse when the weather got hot. Why?”

  “I just saw Owen cleaning out her locker. Her inhaler fell out of the pocket of a heavy sweatshirt.”

  “Fleece. Dark green.”

  “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  Rich sucked in a breath. “She used it as her winter coat. It was big on her—she wore it over her cardigan. Maybe, when Sheriff Holman checked her locker, he thought it was just some extra sweatshirt—it’s not the normal bulky winter coat—but I can’t imagine her leaving school without it. Especially if it was already getting bad outside. Even if canceling school did startle her—it’s just hard to believe.”