Deadgirl

by B. C. Johnson

  I touched the handle of the car. I opened it. I sat down in the car. I put on my seatbelt. I looked up when Mom asked me a question. I answered it with a lie. My dad asked the same question, and I answered it with a lie. I told them I wanted to go home. They took me home.

  I walked in the door. I walked up the stairs. I told my Mother I would sit alone for a while. I closed my door. I looked across the room, at my dresser. There were three pictures on my dresser. One was last year, at the beach. It was me and Zack and Morgan and Daphne in bathing suits. Zack was pretending to cringe in terror while Daphne and Morgan and I pretended to hit him with giant Day-Glo Fun Noodles.

  I thought about Zack. I thought about the little nugget of heat still in my belly, the one that belonged to him. The last glowing piece of what I’d taken. Of what had broken me today. Of what Zack would never feel, or have, or know again.

  I took that tiny spark of what could have been, of what had been, of everything Zack felt for me, all that was left after using it to destroy Abraham. I took it and reached out, toward the picture of the four of us. The frame cracked under an invisible hand, then glass exploded over the dresser and onto the floor. The metal twisted and jerked, squeezing into a little ball. I kept pushing, kept squeezing, kept folding the silver frame in until it was no bigger than a golf ball. And inside it, crushed and squeezed and obliterated was, I knew, that picture. The ball lifted off the dresser and flew into my hand.

  That little coal in my belly was gone.

  I wished I could dump myself out. I fell onto my bed, and I cried myself into oblivion. I let them come out. I thought of every kiss and ever shy touch and every smile and every time he held me and everything he said to me. I thought of the times he’d saved my life, and the times I’d saved his, and the way his smile made my stomach feel.

  Eventually, when I was all used up, when my body shook with tiny after-shocks, I fell asleep.

  My first time, since I’d died.

  I didn’t wake up until morning.

  Interlude

  Goodfellow

  My eyes came open. Sunlight streamed through the window above my head, a bright band of blinding light. Grogginess—I’d almost forgot what that was like. I rubbed sleep out of my eyes and sat up slowly. I had one thing to do, before I tried my best to tackle a future without him. Without Zack.

  The thought resounded inside of me, like a scream at the bottom of a well. I pushed it away, because there was something more important.

  There was one person I had to thank.

  I showered and dug through my closet for the girliest sundress I could find. It turned out to be a cornea-burning shade of yellow, complete with a print of white flowers and vines. I put on a pair of sandals, and slipped a white cardigan over my shoulders. I put my hair half-up and half-down, with a thin braid extending from each of my temples to tie together behind my head.

  I put on light make-up, outdoor make-up, just enough to round me out. I looked at myself in the mirror and managed to find something like a smile. Look at that, Lucy Day. Just like a real girl.

  I dug through a chest in my closet, filled to the brim with jewelry I never used anymore. I found what I was looking for, and ran to my picture drawer. A few bits of glue and some scissors later, and I was ready. I stood in the center of the room, closed my eyes, and flipped.

  Beach sounds, first. Waves committing suicide against the sand, over and over, an endless parade. The cold wind of the ocean, slicing across my skin like a razor. The out-of-place beach party smoke smell. I opened my eyes, and I wish I could say I was surprised to see him.

  He stood in the waves, just at the edge, his brown slacks rolled up above his knees. The grey ocean licked at his bare feet. One hand cradled a pile of white seashells, and his ancient, lined face was tilted down toward them. He picked at them, tossing the broken ones back into the tide.

  I waited, my hands behind my back. Finally, he looked up. A smile tugged the crags of his face into youthful buoyancy. His wild hair stuck out at all conceivable angles, and that damn red pilot’s scarf danced in the wind like a flame behind him.

  “Puck,” I said. “Or Robin?”

  Puck walked up onto the beach, smiling all the while. It kindled something inside me, where the great black hollow now lived. The one that had been for Zack. An ounce of happiness. Of approval, and caring.

  Puck shook his head.

  “Puck then?”

  He nodded.

  I looked him up and down. Then I held my hands above my head like a ballerina and revolved slowly.

  “What do you think?”

  The old man bowed and took one of my hands. He kissed the back of my hand like a knight, and I laughed and rolled my eyes. Puck stood up again, straight as a fence post, and smirked. Then he touched his fingers to his lips and made a bright loud smacking sound, just like an Italian chef complementing his own food.

  “Thank you,” I said, and curtsied.

  Puck stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. He must have been thinking extra hard, or feeling extra strong, because I could pick up dribs and drabs of his thoughts. I held tight to him, for a moment, enjoying the moment. I never thought I’d see him again. Puck had been there, when I was at my loneliest and most confused. When my world had ended, Puck had taught me a new one.

  He was ecstatic to see me alive. It poured off of him like a waterfall.

  “I have something for you,” I said. From the front pocket of my cardigan, I removed a little oval silver locket on a silver chain. I held it out to him. “Open it.”

  Puck’s face smoothed out, the smile disappearing. His eyes grew wide, and wet, and he mouthed the words thank you. I waved my hand, biting hard into my lower lip.

  He took the locket in his long slender fingers, and turned it over. He popped it open and gazed down into each half. One was a picture of me about six months ago, taken by Morgan. It was a candid shot, me looking to my right, the green grass of the park behind me. I couldn’t remember what I was looking at, but it was without a doubt my favorite picture of me. The other picture was a baby picture of me, wearing a tiny sundress, digging a hole at the beach. A bright pink bow the size of a Frisbee had been clipped into my hair. My mom, naturally, trying to turn me into a doll.

  Puck held his hand over his mouth. Though he did not shudder or sob, trails of silver tears slid down his cheeks. I watched him bite hard into his hand and turn away from me, and for a split second I thought I’d made a terrible mistake.

  “I’m sorry! Oh Puck, I just thought…I just wanted to say thank you. For everything you’ve done for me, and for my friends. I’d be dead without you. Morgan and Zack would be dead without you. You’re a hero. And if you ever regretted making the decision you made, the same decision I made, just remember—we wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t become a phantom, all those years ago. Just, thanks. Thank you.”

  I watched Puck’s shoulders, watched the side of his face. He dabbed at his eyes with the scarf, closed the locket, and slipped it over his head. He turned to me and tucked the locket away down the front of his button-up. A small timid smile curved his lips.

  Thank you.

  I reeled. I heard him that time, as clear as a bell, floating in my thoughts.

  I grinned at him and curtsied again.

  She told you?

  The feeling of hearing his voice in my mind was strange. I touched my temple and shook my head a little to clear it.

  “About your first daughter. About Lucy? Yeah, Ophelia told me.”

  Puck nodded.

  “You didn’t lose her this time,” I said. I touched his arm. “You never will.”

  Puck touched the locket on his chest, then looked up at the roiling grey clouds overhead. I let him pull himself together, and I watched the grey horizon across the ocean for a long time. Finally, I heard a rustling sound, and I turned toward him. His hand was held out, and a perfect white shell sat in the center of his palm. I looked up at him, smiled, and took it.

  “S
o how did I do, Puck? Bagged my Mors, didn’t die, saved all of my friends. And did it all while staying incredibly fashionable. How did I do?”

  Puck looked up at me, gravely, and held one hand up.

  He made the see-saw motion.

  I leaned down, scooped up a handful of wet sand, and hurled it as hard as I could. But he was already running down the beach, dancing and leaping and booking as fast as he could.

  “Don’t think you’ll get away with this.”

  I ran after him, intent on putting a sand-clod right in his stupid grinning face.

  Epilogue

  Winter Informal, or, One More Secret

  The next week passed, because it had to. I don’t think I had any part in it passing, and if I had, I imagined the world would have ground to a halt. I spent those first days as a husk. I ate, though I wasn’t hungry, something I was getting used to. I slept, a lot, in fact, though I was never tired. I went to class, and I did my homework.

  I suffered the pity of Morgan, Daphne, Sara, and Wanda with aplomb, I feel. I would have preferred just never talking about him ever again, but they made me. Morgan, I told the truth about what happened. The other girls I gave them what they wanted to hear—he broke up with me, because of my disappearances. He couldn’t handle them, emotionally, and so he thought it better that we end it. Better for him, better for me. I don’t know what he was telling people. I didn’t care. I couldn’t.

  I told Ms. Crane the same thing. I turned her attention to my break-up, and away from my shoddy story about being attacked by Abraham. Talking to her helped, even if it was half lies. Gradually I began to come back to life, even if it felt like I’d had something torn out of me, an organ I would never replace. Something vital. Something good.

  That’s why, when Sara told us that David Ebersbach had asked her to Winter Formal, I didn’t immediately end her life. And, to her credit, she told us in a low, sad, very frightened voice, like she’d just told a tiger that she tasted really great.

  “I don’t care,” I told her, in the quad during lunch. “Stop tiptoeing around me, guys. Just don’t ask me to go dress shopping with you.”

  They’d all laughed at that, nervously, like they had to. Whatever. Better a fear-laugh than that dead terrified silence, like I was made of porcelain and their words were stones. Like I might just lose my mind and start biting people.

  When the conversation came around to everyone’s dance plans, I groaned and buried myself in my turkey sandwich. But I listened to them talk, because, well, it was better than thinking. Better than living in the place in my brain where Zack and I go to Winter Formal and look dazzling and stun the world.

  Morgan hadn’t been attracting the boys like she used to, which she readily admitted. Gorgeous, leggy, blonde volleyball star Morgan had been put on the shelf, maybe permanently. I hadn’t seen her since that day without a ponytail or a baseball hat, and she lived perpetually in sweat shirts. Still, I don’t think it was just that. Her sunken eyes were her most distinguishing feature now. I wondered if they would ever go away. If maybe I hadn’t broken both the people I loved most.

  And Wanda…she still hadn’t recovered from her attack at Benny’s party. She was even twitchier, if that was possible. Even more sullen, drawn in, and terrified. Daphne just hadn’t decided which boy to take.

  “Well, to hell with it,” Daphne said, suddenly, as we pondered our miserable states. “No dance.”

  “What?” Sara asked, annoyed. I didn’t blame her.

  “No, yeah, I like it,” Daphne said. She stood up on the little stone bench and held her arms out wide. Morgan covered her eyes and Wanda groaned audibly. “Picture this. Four girls, all dateless. In sweatpants.”

  “Oh God,” Morgan said.

  “Wait. Wait it gets better,” Daphne said. She was proselytizing now, her arms sweeping an imaginary crowd. “We’re in a dark bedroom, maybe just candles, maybe just the glow of Pretty in Pink.”

  “Lame,” Sara said.

  “Shut up now, hon,” she said, and patted Sara on the head. Sara swung a lazy arm at her, but Daphne juked out of the way and hopped to the other low stone bench. “And we’re eating. No, not eating. Shoveling. I’m talking unhinging our jaws for Hershey bars and Corn Dogs. I’m talking about making fun of bitches, and talking about boys—”

  I looked up at her, and she must have seen something there. She held her hands out defensively.

  “—or never talking about boys. I changed my mind. And we’ll drink soda and pass out and have a sleep over. Bring your pajamas, your Skittles, and your self-pity.”

  “Sounds awesome,” Sara grumbled.

  “Not for you, hon,” Daphne grinned. “You’ll be fighting off gropes, and drinking crappy punch, and watching the air-humping that stands in for dancing nowadays.”

  “Nowadays, Gram-Gram?” I said, and Daphne laughed.

  “Naysayers be gone. Who is down for Pityfest? Show of hands people.”

  My hand and Wanda’s and Morgan’s, despite our groaning, went up in tandem. Daphne laughed and clapped her hands together.

  “Lame,” Sara said, again, and scooped her things. “I’m gonna go figure out logistics with David.”

  “Bye-bye now,” Daphne said.

  That Friday, we all went over to my house. It had to be my house. I wasn’t grounded, exactly, but we all agreed it would rock the boat less to keep us in sight of my parents. Mom and Dad didn’t mind—Mom was ecstatic to see me start to come out of my funk, even if it was only by inches.

  And Daphne kept our promise. We scarfed junk food, and talked about girls we hated, and we watched Molly Ringwald—though it turned out to be The Breakfast Club instead of Pretty in Pink—and we wore sweatpants. I thought of Zack only once an hour, which, I assure you, was a record, even though every time I did, it tore a fresh hole I knew would never quite heal.

  As the night began to wind down, Wanda took me aside with the pretense of going to the kitchen with me. In the darkened hallway, she grabbed my arm and gave me a nervous little half-smile. She reached for her throat, and removed a long silver chain with a cross on it.

  I held out my hand and shook my head before she even said anything.

  “Just wait,” Wanda whispered. “I…just want you to borrow it. For a while.”

  I was touched, but I shook my head. “I’m okay, Wanda—”

  “This is my grandma’s…she gave it to me when my dad died,” Wanda said. She looked at the plain little silver cross with watery eyes. “She told me that whenever I missed him, I should touch it, and I would feel a little better. Just knowing…I don’t know…maybe someone was looking after me. I know it’s dumb…”

  “It’s not dumb,” I said.

  “Well…I want you to borrow it,” Wanda said, and shook her head at my denial. “Please. You have always helped me…saved me. Talked to me, even though I’m kinda a dork—”

  “Wanda—”

  “Yes, I am,” she said, and gave a self-deprecating laugh. “So, please. Let me help you.”

  I bowed my head a little, and she slipped the chain over my neck. I looked down at the little spinning cross and let it settle on my t-shirt. I touched it. I looked up at Wanda. She must have seen it in my face before I even felt it, because she immediately pulled me into a tight hug. I sobbed silently against her shoulder.

  When it was over, I leaned back, tried to wipe the tears from my eyes, and thanked her.

  “Just give it back whenever, Luce,” Wanda said. “It’ll be okay.”

  I nodded. I looked down at the cross, and I pinched it between my fingers, and I drew a deep shuddering breath to try to calm myself.

  A little explosion of heat seared my fingertips and slid up my arm. It rushed through me, coated me, warmed me over. I felt a jumble of emotions—sadness, relief, anger, pity…and a shotgun blast of images. Some were of Wanda, but some were of a woman I didn’t recognize and yet knew to be Wanda’s grandma when she was young.

  I stumbled a little, but Wanda gra
bbed my arm.

  “Are you okay?” she asked me.

  I looked down at the little cross with dawning wonder.

  “Lucy, just, you know what?” Wanda smiled, clearly trying to lift me up. “I want you to keep it.”

  “Wanda, no—”

  “Shut up, Luce, okay?” Wanda said, still smiling. “Let me do this.”

  I stared at her, then down at the cross, then back up at her.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

  Wanda shrugged, turned, and started heading back upstairs.

  “It’s just a necklace, right?”

  Just a necklace. I watched her walk away, my thoughts careening together. When she had first showed it to me, she was on the verge of tears just looking at it. And I know how deeply she cared for her grandma, who had just recently passed away. And knowing it helped her get through her dad’s passing…just a necklace? She’d even said it with a throwaway tone. Just a necklace.

  I looked down at the silver cross, feeling the familiar heat flowing through my body. Essence.

  I’d taken it out. The emotions Wanda had invested into it…I fed off it.

  And I didn’t hurt anybody.

  I tucked the necklace back into my shirt and felt a rush of raw happiness turn my face into a broad grin. I didn’t hurt anybody. Could it be done again? Was it possible for me to live like that?

  I bolted into the living room, to my mom’s favorite gaudy Hummel figurine, tucked away in its glass case. I eased the door open, scooped up the little porcelain umbrella girl, and pressed it to my mouth. It felt warm against my lips, and I inhaled with a sharp breath. That heat slid down my throat, warming me a little more. I laughed and dropped the Hummel back amongst its fellows.