“Later!” I called as I flew out of the classroom door.
I ran in the direction of his locker, heading down the student-packed hall quickly as I dodged kids and open locker doors.
I made a sharp left down the junior hall and ran face-first into something solid.
“Woah,” he said as he grabbed my arms to steady me, “ Where's the fire, Roz?”
I looked up at Parker.
“I was coming to find you, actually,” I said, slightly out of breath and half-startled that I'd run into him. “We need to talk, Parker.”
His eyes narrowed and he tilted his head. “Look,” he said politely, “You made it clear that we're not friends, and I respect that. There's nothing for us to talk about, really.”
“But there is!” I insisted, “I keep having these dreams and… you're in them….” my words slowed and stuttered as I listened to myself.
Oh my gosh, I sound like I'm mental! Just say it straight out, stupid!
“Roz,” he said smoothly, “You're dreaming about me?” His eyes sparkled wickedly and he wore a grin to match.
Just then, who of all people should decide to interrupt us but Devon.
“Rosalind!” She said happily, “There you are! We really need to talk. People are saying I did that to your face!” She pointed a long, pale pink, perfectly manicured nail at my cheek.
Odie was right. Those things looked lethal.
“Yeah, I'm sorry about that Devon, but I can't talk to you right now. I need to speak with Parker, privately.”
Parker looked down at Devon, who was dressed head to toe in the softest, palest, cotton candy pink imaginable, and his sly grin deepened. He leaned his face toward hers and whispered, “She's dreaming about me.”
Devon’s face lost all color and she looked from him to me, then back to him again. And then she whispered one word, so softly spoken I almost didn't hear it.
“No.”
“It's true,” he said, continuing to speak in the same whisper as before. “She just admitted it.”
“Umm,” I announced, “Look, I don't know why any of this is your business Devon, or your concern, but I really need to speak with Parker privately. So please, could you just go away or something?”
I hated to be so rude, but I was on a mission.
Her eyes grew big as she looked at me.
“Are you telling me to go away?” She asked sadly, her shoulders sagging as Parker’s seemed to inflate.
“Yes, please,” I answered, “For now. I just need to settle-”
She turned around and walked back the way she'd come, without a further word or backward glance.
Wow. Odd, much?
I turned back to Parker who leaned forward and propped his hand up on the locker behind me.
“So, you've been dreaming of me, hmm?” He asked. His charm was suddenly turned up to a new level and I wondered briefly if he thought I was hitting on him. After all, he'd gotten mighty flirty since I mentioned I'd dreamt about him.
I glanced around the hall, becoming more aware of the students that walked past, and felt my determination to confront him wither.
“Umm, yeah,” I said with uncertainty. “Maybe we should go somewhere else, where it's quiet-”
“I know just the place!” He said and began walking briskly away. “Follow me.”
My feet moved instantly at his command. I looked at the kids around me as they gathered their possessions to head home for the day. I had a sinking suspicion that staying in a public place might have been wiser, but once Parker had said to follow him, it was like I didn’t have a choice. Besides, I needed to settle this today.
He glanced over his shoulder and grinned when he saw I was, indeed, following.
***
A few moments later I was alone with Parker in a supply closet off the freshmen hall. It was lined with shelves full of paper, staples, scotch tape, and other teaching paraphernalia. I stood there awkwardly, my hands gripping the shoulder strap of my backpack and my teeth gnawing on my bottom lip as I searched for the words.
He didn't give me the opportunity to figure out what to say.
To my utter and absolute astonishment, what he said shocked me right to the bone.
“I'm glad to know the dreams have taken hold, Rosalind. It won't be much longer now. There are steps that I've put in place and each of them must be achieved one by one.”
I’d been expecting an argument of denial, or a proclamation of innocence, or confusion as to why I was dreaming about him. Heck, a part of me even expected him to put the moves on me. I wasn't prepared for him to be so forthwith.
“Explain,” I said shakily.
“What exactly is it you wish to know?” He asked deviously. “I'll tell you what. You get three questions. Ask me any three questions about this little partnership of ours, and I'll answer truthfully. But mind you, I will not answer any more than that.”
Partnership?
Without thinking, I blurted out the most important question to my heart.
“Will he come back?”
Parker chuckled lightly. “I assume you’re speaking of James? Your little ghost boyfriend?” He shrugged. “He's never left. He's still around, you just can't see him. Isn't that how he always existed in your life, anyway? Unseen? For years?”
I nodded, and wondered how Parker knew all this.
“Is he-?” I stopped myself. I was going to as if Jimmy was safe, but I didn't want to waste my question. I only had two left, and needed to make them count.
“Why is all of this happening?” I asked simply.
He stared at me for a long moment before answering.
“I've given you the opportunity to ask any question you wish, and all you can think to ask is why? Ah, Rosalind,” he shook his head, “I'm so disappointed.”
He crossed the room and stopped in front of one of the shelves then began looking through the various items. He picked up an old, dusty grey stapler and examined it. He deftly pulled open the mechanism and found it full of staples, then closed it once again.
He didn't put it back on the shelf. He held it and walked slowly toward me.
“Why do we do the things we do?” He asked, referring to my question. “Most of us are ruled by one of three things: Revenge. Greed. Or love.”
He inched closer and closer to me, but this time I refused to let him intimidate me. I stood firm, and no matter how badly I wanted to back up, I didn't.
Small victories, said my Inner Roz.
“‘All this’ as you put it, is happening for one reason, and one reason only. Love.” He stopped only a few inches from me. “Now then. Your third and final question, please?”
“Wait! What?” I yelled indignantly. “Love is no answer! Love explains nothing! I want answers, Parker! I deserve them! You’ve pulled me into something evil, and then expect me to be okay with an answer like that?” I was so angry, I'm sure smoke was billowing off of me in waves.
He lowered his face directly in front of my own.
“Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we Rosalind? You are in no position to make any sort of demands from me. You asked a question. I answered. It is no fault of my own if you're unhappy with my answers.” He raised the stapler and began clicking it, barely letting the expelled stapler fall away before clicking another to come out and take its place.
He brought it toward my face, clicking it over and over again.
My poor cheek throbbed painfully from where Tobias had left his mark, but I knew it hurt nothing compared to what a staple piercing it would.
I closed my eyes tightly, my face wrenching from the motion. I could hear the clicking as it came closer and closer, but still I refused to back away. My stomach did flip flops and my Inner Roz yelled at me, but I didn't run.
I held my ground.
Suddenly the clicking of the stapler stopped. I was afraid to open my eyes, but I did it anyway.
Parker’s face was so close to me it was all I could see.
“
Boo,” He whispered devilishly.
I jumped.
He threw his head back and laughed.
“You're so much fun, Rosalind. I knew Agnes was right to pick you!”
I took a breath and forced my pulse to cease its racing.
“Agnes picked me?” I asked, confused by everything he said. Each question he answered only made me have more questions. Even his statements left me in question.
“Ah ah,” he admonished lightly. “Is that your third and final question?”
“No,” I instantly regretted asking about Agnes. In these current events, the subject of Agnes was irrelevant.
“Then make it good, sweetheart. This is your last one.”
I gulped and thought hard about everything I wanted answers for. However, in this moment, there was only one thing I desperately needed to know.
Looking back on it now, of course, I already knew the answer. I knew it in the pit of my gut. But at the time, I had to have the confirmation from him. I needed it. I wasn't going to be able to progress down this bewildering road further without hearing him admit it. I knew once I had the truth, his truth, I'd be able to make better sense of everything. And so, because it was the one and only question I needed answered more than anything else, I asked it.
“Who are you?” My voice was small and full of fear in that tiny closet, giving away how scared I was.
He grinned in obvious delight.
“Haven't you figured that out yet, darling?” He brought his head close to mine and whispered in my ear.
“I'm the necromancer.”
CHAPTER 28
“Oh, holy….”
Odie’s voice trailed off in momentary shock. Instead of going home, after school, I'd walked straight to her house instead. Every nerve in my body insisted I let her know about my ‘Q & A’ with Parker immediately.
“It all makes sense now!” She exclaimed, rising from her bed to pace the floor. “Of course he's the necromancer! Why didn't I see it sooner?”
I looked around her room, taking in the pale grey walls and newly-added song lyrics she'd painted on them. She'd taken inspiration from the quotes Bonnie had painted on my walls, and chose her favorite song lyrics for decoration.
She had the lyrics from Johnny Cash’s Hurt, and John Lennon’s Imagine on the wall I was facing now. Other walls had other lyrics, but there were two lines that especially stood out to me more than the others:
“You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.”
And,
“You can have it all,
My empire of dirt.”
While the John Lennon lyrics seemed to totally fit my current situation (hello, dreams that were all too real), I absolutely loved the haunting melody of the song Johnny Cash did with Nine Inch Nails. But, as I read and reread the lyric, something about it bothered me. It left me with the feeling that, no matter what kind of life I tried to build for myself, it would never change the fact that I came from a druggie. That everything I was progressing toward was nothing more than dirt. Useless. Worthless.
It cut too close to the quick.
I had no idea what I was up against with Parker. What did he want from me? Why was he torturing me in my dreams? Was all of this a worthless battle?
“So now what do we do?” Odie asked anxiously. “How are we supposed to prepare ourselves for… whatever… his next step is?”
I shrugged in defeat. “I don't know.” My mind worked itself, trying to come up with some sort of plan, but there was only one thing I could think of.
“We need to research every single thing there is about necromancy,” I said.
She agreed. “We need to know exactly what we're up against and what his purpose is.”
“And,” I added, “We need to know what his weakness is.”
“If any,” she added gravely.
***
We googled everything we could from her laptop in regards to necromancy. While there were many interesting bits of information, the one that stood out to us most was that, in every topic and forum there was on the subject, it all mentioned the same thing.
Black magic.
“Well, great!” I said sarcastically. “I know nothing about black magic.”
Odie nodded. “I don't know much, either. We'll have to add that to our list of what to research.”
“Fab,” I said tiredly.
Just then, in the silence that fell, we heard a soft buzzing sound.
“What is that noise?” I asked.
She listened and the sound came again.
“Ugh, my phone,” she said, “I forgot to take it out of my tote.”
She rummaged for her cell and brought it out of her huge bag. She checked the device and her eyes grew big around as she read her missed messages.
“Roz,” she said quietly, “Bonnie sent two texts and called once, almost two hours ago. She said you need to come home immediately.”
I looked at the time and was surprised to see that I'd been at Odie’s house for three hours.
“Did she say anything else?” I asked, concerned.
“No, just that if you were over here, to come home right now. She didn't leave a voicemail, either.”
A dull ache began in the pit of my stomach and slowly spread outward to my limbs. Bonnie wouldn't have asked me to come home unless it was something important.
“I gotta go,” I said anxiously.
I grabbed my backpack and ran out the door, not stopping or slowing down until I entered the front door of my house.
***
Inside, everything was quiet. Too quiet. The curtains were drawn, blocking out the late day sun, and all the lights were off.
Something is definitely wrong here, said Inner Roz.
Yeah, no kidding, I replied caustically.
I walked through the house, opening curtains and turning on lights so I could see. Nothing looked out of place. Nothing was amiss.
“Anyone home?” I called out, expecting an answer that didn't come.
I hadn't really missed not having my phone until this very moment.
“Hello?” I tried again, walking toward the windows that looked over the backyard. I paused and threw open the drapes, and there I saw them.
My family.
Bonnie sat on the deck, sipping a glass of wine. It was the first time I had ever seen her imbibe. Mitch and Vincent laid in the soft grass, pointing at the clouds above their heads. The dogs hovered near the two guys, occasionally licking their faces.
And Amelia-
Wait. Where was Amelia? I looked, but she was absent from the quaint scene before me.
Oh, no.
No no no no no!
I ran outside.
“Bonnie?” I asked, breathless.
She turned to face me. Tears poured in a continuous stream down her pale cheeks. She looked old and tired and so completely lost.
“I tried to get a hold of you,” she whispered brokenly, “I texted Odie, and called.”
“We didn’t hear her phone,” I said apologetically. “Where…?” I stammered. “Is… Is she gone?” I asked, afraid of the coming answer.
“Juanita came for her right after school.”
Juanita. My social worker. The lady who had picked me up from the hospital and whisked me into my new life. I had at first hated her, then as our short time together came to a close, I'd grown to admire and respect her.
Not anymore. I suddenly hated her once again.
“Will we be able to visit her?” I asked.
“Not likely,” she said softly. “Winifred, the aunt, found a real nice place for them to live. But it's several hours away.”
I nodded, unable to swallow the huge ball of emotion that seemed stuck in my throat. I stood there awkwardly, silently, unable to ask any more questions or offer any sort of hopeful anecdotes.
I walked back into the house, stepping quietly through the living room and spying the name Amelia beautifully painted on the mural. I steppe
d further, going down the hallway toward her room and pausing at her door.
I pushed it open.
It was empty except for the furniture, of course. Upon the pink and blue bedspread, lay four pieces of paper with different colorings on them. Each one had a name written in childish spelling at the top.
They were pictures. She'd drawn us pictures to say goodbye.
I looked at the one bearing Mitch’s name. It was of a brown haired man wearing a red and white baseball cap, holding the hand of a little girl with black pigtails and a pink sweater. It was Mitch and Amelia.
She'd used a red marker to draw hearts all over the empty spaces on the page.
Next, for Vincent, she’d drawn a picture of what was obviously him and her, and all the family pets, playing together in the backyard. She'd used a blue marker to draw what looked like birds flying all over the sky above them.
The one addressed to Bonnie was simple. It was a drawing of Bonnie, complete with the cat eye glasses and frizzy hair, and she held what looked like a tiny, bundled up baby in her arms with a small patch of black, curly hair on top of its head. A giant heart surrounded the image, with one small, breathtaking word spelled beneath it.
“Mama.”
I held back a sob, thankful the others were still outside. I had to take a deep breath to compose my emotions before moving on to the final paper, and when I did, hot and cold chills crept down my spine as I realized what Amelia had left for me.
She'd drawn a cemetery, complete with dark green grass and grey tombstones covered with black crosses. In the center of the drawing was obviously me. She'd colored my hair long and dark, and had dressed me in black pants, purple hoodie, and purple shoes. But that's not what took my breath away and gave me heart palpitations all at the same time. No. It's what she'd drawn beside the image of me that affected me most.
Next to the drawing of me stood a tall figure, all in black, with long blonde hair and a black top hat. In one hand, he held a cane. In the other, a jeweled dagger.
In the center of my chest, she’d drawn a small, red heart, with waves coming off of it in shades of first orange, then yellow. The yellow wavy lines were then wrapping themselves about the image of the darkly clad figure. She'd written a simple text at the bottom of the drawing:
Rest in Peace Roz: The R.I.P. Series Book 1 Page 18
