“Why didn’t I think about it more?”
“Think about what?”
He waves a hand, blindly indicating the area around her head. “Your hair is blond, and Jay says it’s brown. And your eyes? Oh God. What is going on?”
“My eyes? My hair?” Lucy bends to catch his gaze. “I look different to you?”
He shrugs stiffly. It feels like there is a stampede of horses galloping in his chest.
“I look different to you and it didn’t freak you out before?”
“Not until now.” He groans. “I guess I didn’t want to think about it. I don’t ever want to think about it.”
“Think about what?”
“Nothing. Forget it.” He shoves his hands into his hair, pulls.
“What did my hand feel like?” she asks, more insistent now.
“Um . . . ? Like . . .” He shakes his head, trying to find the right words. “Energy . . . and buzzing . . .”
She offers her hand again. After staring at it for what feels like an eternity, he steps forward, breathing heavily, and takes it. In his grip, her touch snaps against his skin before settling into a warm, vibrant hum. His voice shakes when he says, “Like energy and air? Um . . .” The hum begins to fill him with a longing so intense he feels disoriented. He releases it again and steps back, shaking both hands at his sides like he’s flicking away water. “It’s crazy, Lucy. This is crazy.”
She steps toward him, but he takes another step back, needing space to breathe. He feels like the air is being sucked from his lungs when she’s so close. As if reading his mind, she pulls her hands into the sleeves of her shirt.
But after a long moment, curiosity takes over. Reaching forward, he tugs at her sleeve, pulling her hand out and toward him. His fingertips run over her palm before he turns her hand and presses it to his. Snapping, crackling energy followed by a delicious warmth and the relief of a strange, deep ache. The shape of her is obvious, but he can’t close his hand over hers. When he presses too hard, her energy almost seems to repel his touch.
Is it really his mind doing this?
“Wild,” he breathes. She seems to pull back, as if his touch borders on painful for her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s a lot to take. Your skin feels hot and so . . . alive? It’s a little overwhelming for me.”
Colin winces, looking away as he drops her hand and mumbles an apology.
“It’s like I didn’t exist, and then suddenly I was there on the trail,” she says, explaining. “And that dress I was wearing? The thin flowery one? The little-girl sandals?” She grows quiet, and he looks up at her, waiting. “I think that’s what I was buried in.”
She’s afraid, he realizes. Her eyes are this rich, grinding violet, flecked with metallic red. Hope and fear, he thinks, but mostly fear. Colin squeezes his eyes shut. He can read her mood in her eyes.
“Colin, are you okay?”
He presses the heel of his palms against his brows and grunts, not a yes, not a no. He is most definitely not okay.
She steps closer. “After I saw you, I mean, I felt like I was supposed to find you, and I realize how that sounds. It sounds creepy. It’s why I ran away.”
“I almost went after you,” he mumbles, but immediately wishes he hadn’t. This conversation feels the same as barreling headlong into a sharp turn in the dark, on a new trail. He doesn’t know how to navigate it.
“After that first day, I felt drawn to the school. I would sit outside and . . .” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her look up at him. “You know when you hold your breath and everything gets tight and full and you wonder what’s causing your chest to burn? I mean, it’s only oxygen and carbon dioxide not being let in and out of your lungs, but it burns, you know?”
His eyes widen and he nods, barely. He knows exactly what she means.
“Seeing you was like being able to exhale and then inhale again.” She searches his expression. “I know it sounds lame, but when I’m with you—even though nothing else makes sense—I’m glad I’m back.”
She’s said too much, and Colin doesn’t know how to tell her that it’s impossible she’s dead, and this entire conversation is a figment of his imagination. But then again, if this is all in his head, should he even feel embarrassed for her that what she says can’t possibly be true? How does one fight the spiral into insanity? His mother certainly didn’t.
Rather, she fell into a depression so deep after his sister died that she wouldn’t eat or move for days at a time. Finally, she insisted she saw her dead daughter walking around campus, lost her mind, and drove the living members of her family off a bridge.
He stares at her, feeling as if he’s about to throw up. Her eyes are liquid metal infused with color. Her hair is white-blond only to him. She tells him she’s returned from the grave, that she’s here for him. “I . . . I need—”
“This sounds insane. You think I’m insane. I tota—”
“I’m sorry. I have to—”
“Please, Colin, believe me. I would never—”
He stands as she’s midsentence, turning woodenly and walking as fast as he can back to the dorm.
Chapter 9 • HER
SHE WATCHES COLIN WALK AWAY and can almost feel the frenzy of his reaction. The air seems to cool with every step he puts between them, but the imprint of his palm burns against hers. The conversation went both better and much worse than she expected. Better, because she was actually able to explain. Worse, because he left the way he did, looking as if he thought she was making it all up.
Standing, Lucy wraps herself in Colin’s hoodie. She closes her eyes as she takes in his scent on the cotton. What else can she do but wait? She can’t blame him for his panic and for the fear she saw so plainly on his face. The only way she can earn his trust is to let him see that all she wants is to be near him. She has time. She may even have forever.
With one final look, she begins the long walk back to her shed.
• • •
She sits by the statue of Saint Osanna the next morning with her arms wrapped around her legs pulled tight to her chest. She’s grown used to the statue’s strangeness; it’s the only thing that feels as out of place in this living world as she does. The earliest risers shuffle past in the chilly air, talking, laughing, eating. Barely awake or focused. One with bright, flushed cheeks, one with wild red hair, and one with smooth, ebony skin. Despite this, Lucy is struck by how little there is to differentiate them. The space around each student feels dull and hollow.
Lucy thinks Colin must hate this weather, so drizzly and wet. Would he ride in this, hopping his bike from log to log, defying gravity on such simple engineering even in the rain? She wants to watch him like that—lost in something he loves.
Just as the sun finally reaches the tops of the buildings, Colin appears. He steps around the corner headed to work the morning shift in Ethan Hall, long legs, long strides, wild hair still too long. He pushes it off his brow and glances at his watch before starting to jog. Lucy ducks back into the shadows, pulling the hood of his hoodie up and over her head. Unlike every other student at Saint Osanna’s, the space near Colin seems so full; the air is heavy with him. It distorts as if heated, swirling inward, wanting to be as close to him as she does.
“Good morning,” she says into the cold, hoping it will pass along the message.
Chapter 10 • HIM
HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY how awesome you are, Dot?” Jay asks, his mouth full and his second plate of French toast in front of him. They’re sitting at the secret table in the kitchen, watching Dot and the other cooks prepare breakfast for hundreds of students about to pour in through the doors. Back here, they can eat in peace and steal extra bacon.
But this morning, Colin picks at his breakfast.
“If I’m so awesome, then why do I always have to take your dishes to the sink?” she asks over her shoulder.
Jay immediately changes the subject: “You going out after work?”
&nb
sp; Dot steps up behind Colin, setting a carton of orange juice on the table before turning back to the giant range and flipping about seventeen pieces of French toast in ten seconds. “Yep. I’m going to the poker tournament in Spokane. I pulled a royal flush right out of the gate last time. First deal of the night.” She smiles and does a little dance as she begins slicing oranges.
“Dot, I’m not sure I like you driving all the way down there,” Jay says.
“Oh please,” she scoffs. “My eyesight is better than yours, kid. I’ve seen some of the girls you date.” She makes exaggerated air quotes around the word “date.”
“You wouldn’t rather hang out with us than a bunch of old ladies? I’m hurt, Dot. If I were ten years older . . .” Jay trails off, wiggling his eyebrows at her.
“Jay, you are so creepy.” Colin doesn’t need any help feeling nauseous this morning. He got zero sleep. He barely wants to look up, for fear of seeing something new that confirms he’s lost his mind.
He’s a disaster.
Dot fills Jay’s plate again and wipes her hands on her DON’T FRY BACON NAKED apron. “You know I’d go nuts if I never got away from this place.”
Everyone grows silent, and Colin can feel them both watching him, waiting for his reaction to Dot’s casual words. Colin: the orphan who has no idea what comes next and will probably never leave this tiny town.
To change the subject, he asks the first thing that comes to mind—“Dot, you ever see a Walker?”—and immediately regrets it.
She stops slicing, knife hovering in the air. Colin can hear the rhythm of footsteps through the kitchen wall as students stomp their way into the dining hall. Finally, she shrugs. “I sure hope not, but sometimes . . . I’m not so sure.”
It takes a few seconds for her words to make it from Colin’s ears to the part of his brain that makes sense of them. “You think they exist, though?”
She turns and points the spatula at him. “Is this about your mom again? You know I loved her like a daughter.”
Jay grows silent, his interest in his French toast suddenly renewed. He knows practically everything there is to know about Colin. He definitely knows the story surrounding how his family died, and more than that, he knows how much Colin hates to talk about it.
“I just want to know,” Colin mumbles.
Turning back around, she flips more French toast in lingering silence before saying, “Sometimes I think they’re with us and maybe we don’t want to see.”
Jay laughs as if Dot is joking. But Colin doesn’t.
“I’m a crazy old lady about most things, but I think I’m right about this.”
“What do you mean?” Colin begins tearing the edge of a campus newspaper into narrow strips, trying to look like this is just casual conversation. Like he’s not hanging on her every word. “You believe the stories?”
“I don’t know. We’ve all heard about the army man on the bench and the girl disappearing in the woods.” She squints, considering. “Newspapers love to talk about how this place is different. Built on land where kids were buried. The fire that first week the school opened. We all know people have seen things, and more than a few. Some a bit clearer than others,” she adds quietly. “Who even knows what’s real anymore?”
Colin pokes at his food. “So you think they’re all over, then? Ghosts and spirits and stuff? Not only here at Saint O’s?”
“Maybe not ‘all over,’ but I bet there’s always a few around. Least, that’s what people say.” Colin wonders if he’s imagining the way she looks out the window, off into the direction of the lake.
“If you haven’t seen them, how do you know?” Jay asks, joining in. “Some of the stuff I’ve heard—it’s pretty crazy. You’d have to be nu—” He stops, glancing quickly in Colin’s direction before stuffing his mouth full of French toast again.
“If you think this world isn’t full of things you don’t understand, Jay, you’re too dumb to use a fork unsupervised.” Dot’s quiet laugh softens her words.
Colin feels sort of wobbly all of a sudden, like his insides have liquefied. He’s not sure which scenario would be worse: that he’s lost his mind, or that the stories he’s dismissed his entire life could be true. That Lucy could be dead.
“Why are they here, do you think?” he asks, quieter now.
She pauses, looking over her shoulder and raising an eyebrow. “You’re taking this pretty seriously, kiddo.” Turning back, she doesn’t answer right away and begins chopping a large pile of dried cranberries. The sharp, fresh scent fills the space. “Who knows? Maybe to watch over us,” she says, shrugging a shoulder. “Or to meet us so that we’ll know someone when we’re gone.” She drops the entire pile into the mixer. “Or maybe they’re just stuck here. Maybe they need closure.”
“Closure like they want revenge?” Colin asks.
“Well, if they’re bad, I reckon it’s pretty easy to tell. I’ve always figured anyone from the other side is undiluted—good or bad. Life is all gray. Dying has to be pretty black or white.”
She pulls the dough out and begins forming rolls as Colin watches, just as he has hundreds of mornings in his lifetime. Somehow every movement she makes feels more substantial, like he never noticed how much her experience weighs until now.
“Thanks, Dot.”
“For what? Waxing poetic about dead folks?”
“I mean, when you’re not talking about the hot barista at the coffee shop or the benefits of pineapple for your sex life, you’re all right.”
“I try.” She points to the cabinet above the counter. “Grab my baking sheets.”
• • •
Even after the familiar routine of helping Dot bake, Colin doesn’t feel much better. If anything, he feels worse. He can count on one hand the number of times in the past ten years he’s felt this mopey, but the things Dot said were the same kind of things he’s heard his whole life: vague slogans about the afterlife and how Walkers probably exist and maybe his mother wasn’t insane. It’s the kind of reassurance that’s easy to give because, ultimately, it doesn’t matter anymore whether she was. She’s gone.
She’s gone, and his father is gone, and his sister, Caroline, has been gone even longer. Now Colin might be losing it too. It’s the first time since his parents died that Colin is faced so baldly with the knowledge that he’s completely alone in this world. No matter how much they care, Dot and Joe and Jay can’t help him with this one.
Dot finds him sitting on the back step, drawing in the lacy ground frost with a long stick in his good hand. She opens the door, and warm air blows against the back of his neck.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Thinking.” He wipes his face and she catches it, moving to sit by him.
“Are you upset, baby?”
“I’m good.”
“You’re not,” she says, putting a warm hand on his knee. “Don’t lie to me. You’re the boy who never stops smiling. It makes it easy to spot when something’s off.”
Colin turns to look at her, and her face softens when she sees his red-rimmed eyes. “I’m losing it, Dot. Like, I seriously wonder if I’m crazy.”
He hates the way her face falls and how guilty she looks, as if she’s responsible for the weight of his tragic life. “You’re not.”
“You don’t even know why I think that.”
“I can hazard a guess,” she says quietly. “You want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” He gives her a small smile. “But thanks.”
“I’ve seen some crazy things in my day. And Lord knows you’ve got better reasons than the rest of us to have some wrinkles in your sanity, but will it help if I tell you I know for a fact you’re as sane as they come?”
Colin laughs humorlessly. “But how could you know that?”
Her expression steadies. “Because I know.”
“Maybe I’m imagining you saying that. It’s okay, Dot. I’m okay.”
She studies him for a beat before pinching him hard on the
arm. He cries out, immediately rubbing the spot. Dot has a pretty mean pinch. “What the hell, Dot?”
“See?” she says with a quiet laugh. “You didn’t imagine that. And for someone who’s survived things that would have left anyone else in the ground and lives their days like there will never be any more, sure, you sometimes give me good reason to think you’re nuts. But if you’re crazy, then I’m young and ugly, and we know I’m neither.”
• • •
Colin makes a quick trip to check in on Joe before heading to class and is relieved to see his godfather sitting up, enjoying an enormous plate of French toast and bacon.
“Dot delivery?” he asks.
Joe nods, pointing with his fork to the chair beside the bed. “You have time to sit?”
“A couple minutes.”
Colin sits, and the warm silence fills the space between them. It’s their familiar routine: quiet sitting, little conversation. Colin looks out the window, watching students trudge to class while Joe eats.
“Sleep good?” Joe asks around a bite.
“I should be asking you that.”
“I slept like the dead,” Joe says. “Maggie pumped me full of painkillers.”
Nodding, Colin says, “Yeah, you were looped.”
“Who’s the girl?”
Once he processes the question, Colin’s heart seems to freeze, and then it explodes into a gallop. “Which girl?”
“The one who came to me on the porch. The brown-haired one. Wanted to help, but said she couldn’t.”
“She said that?”
Joe sips his coffee, eyeing Colin. “You’re going to think I’m losing my mind, kid, but I’ve got to know: Is she beautiful or horrible?”
“What?” Colin moves closer.
Looking quickly up at the door to ensure they’re alone, Joe whispers, “The girl. Is she beautiful or horrible?”
Colin whispers, “Beautiful.”
“I thought . . . Her face melted right off and then she became the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.”
Colin is caught by a head rush so powerful, he needs a few seconds before he can answer. “It’s probably the pain meds,” he says, swallowing. “They make you see crazy things.”
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