The Unquiet

by Jeannine Garsee

  For someone, anyone, to break this hollow, awful silence.

  My numb fingers can no longer feel Meg’s. In the unfathomable darkness, in this deadly cold, I imagine the vapor of my breath curling from my lips.

  “Try the f-flashlight again,” I say through chattering teeth.

  No response.

  “The flashlight, Kessler!” Jared bellows, jumping heavily to his feet.

  Nothing. Nobody else moves. If it weren’t for all the shallow panting, Jared and I might as well be alone in this room.

  “Shit!” Jared explodes. The next sounds I hear are his feet thumping away, followed by the clank of a distant door.

  Wrenching free from Meg, I fumble around till I find the flashlight. When I slide the switch, the smoky beam swings over the faces of my friends.

  Meg, Lacy, Tasha, and Dino. Faces frozen. Eyes unblinking. Mouths stretched in soundless screams.

  My back ripples with horror. “Wake up.”

  Nothing.

  I aim the beam directly at Lacy’s face. She doesn’t so much as blink.

  Mannequins. They look like damn mannequins!

  The flashlight beam wavers in my unsteady hand, causing more monstrous shadows to jump from the walls. “Wake up!” I point the jerky light at each of them, one by one. “What’re you doing?”

  My unresponsive audience stares back, unseeing. I rise slowly, dimly aware of the funny sounds I’m making. My shoes slip in the splattered wax—it’s wet, omigod, how can it still be wet?—as I stumble to the door and out of the pool room. I run down the tunnel toward the locker room, forgetting in my panic that Jared tied the doors shut. How do I get out, how do I get out? I stand, paralyzed with confusion, trying to figure out which way Jared went …

  Then I remember the auditorium. I double back and throw myself out.

  I spot Mom dancing with Mr. Brenner, of all people. Under normal circumstances I’d gawk at the sight—but all I can think of are the frozen faces I left behind.

  Unless I imagined it. Is that even possible?

  Music pounds my ears as I wrestle my way through the dancing couples. “Mom!”

  She breaks away from Mr. Brenner. He doesn’t look happy about that. “What?”

  “I need you! Hurry!” When Mr. Brenner steps forward, too, I add, “It’s personal,” because if what I saw was a hallucination, I sure don’t want him to know.

  I rush her off after she murmurs an apology. She balks at the auditorium entrance. “Why are we going in here? You said it was, ah, personal …”

  “No, it’s worse!” I race down the aisle to the stage. Mom follows me to the steps leading up to the tunnel entrance. “In there.” I point. “In the pool room.”

  “The pool room?” she yells. “What were you doing in there?”

  I plop down onto a stage step as she disappears into the void. Hugging my knees, I pray I imagined it. As bad as it’ll be if I am hallucinating, that won’t be half as bad as—

  I hear Mom’s faraway shout: “All of you! Out!”

  Mom, they can’t move! Something’s wrong with them!

  I raise my face in shock at the thud of multiple footsteps, and Lacy’s petulant complaint: “I knew she’d rat us out.”

  She stomps out first, perfectly fine, followed by Tasha and Meg, and, lastly, Dino. Mom, bringing up the rear, actually shoves him when he dawdles. “What part of ‘no one allowed in the tunnel’ do you people not understand?”

  “We were just goofing around, Mrs. Jacobs,” Dino protests.

  I push myself up. Except for Meg, they all look pretty hostile. Meg just stares at the floor, one arm tucked through Tasha’s. “Are—are you guys okay?”

  Tasha tilts her head. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

  Dino, the epitome of innocence, faces off with Mom. “Are we in trouble, Mrs. Jacobs? I mean, we weren’t making out or nothin’.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Mom barks. “What were you doing?”

  Lacy flutters her lashes. “Just talking. It’s so noisy in the gym.”

  “Well, get back there right now. All of you!”

  Meg and Tasha flee. Lacy reluctantly follows. Dino, undoubtedly to prove that nobody orders him around, takes his time sauntering out.

  Mom spins around. “I can’t believe you did that. Anything could’ve happened.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in Annaliese,” I croak.

  “I’m not talking about ghosts. That room is dangerous. The roof could cave in! Why do you think they’re going to tear it down? Didn’t you hear any of the announcements?”

  I try to look appropriately chagrined. This lasts about one second. “Mom, something weird happened—”

  Mom sniffs my breath. “Were you drinking back there?”

  “No! We were just—” No, no, don’t mention that séance! “Talking, like Lacy said. But then everyone, I mean everyone but me, they all …”

  Stared into space? Wouldn’t speak to me?

  Embarrassed, I stare at the carpet. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”

  What if they were kidding around? What if they planned this whole thing?

  “Rinn, my God, I thought something happened to you.”

  She doesn’t have to spell out what she thought that might be. “Sorry.”

  We both look up at a sound in the back of the auditorium. Mom calls, “Look who finally turned up,” and propels me up the aisle toward Nate. “I believe this is your missing date?” She tweaks my arm and then sails back to the gym, instructing Nate: “See if you can keep her out of trouble the rest of the night.”

  “Trouble, huh?” Nate folds his arms. “Why am I not surprised?”

  If my face gets any hotter I’ll have second-degree burns. “Sorry I dumped you like that.”

  “You did the séance thing.”

  I nod. “Are you mad?”

  “Oh, please.”

  He heads toward the gym. I follow slowly. Once there, I glance around for Meg and the others.

  “If you’re looking for your friends,” Nate says, “they already left.”

  “Left?”

  “Yep. You ditch me for them, and then they ditch you. Ironic, huh?”

  I tilt my head. “Are you mad at me or not? Because if you are, then say so, okay? Instead of, like, dwelling on it for the next six months.”

  “Rinn, I’m over it.”

  But he doesn’t sound like it.

  3 MONTHS + 28 DAYS

  Sunday, November 2

  She calls to me from above while I’m trapped in the depths of the pool: “Corinne! Corinne!”

  Nobody calls me Corinne. Only Mom, when she’s mad, or making a point. Or my teachers, when they’re trying to get my attention when my chin lands on my desk at 2:00 p.m.

  The water strangles me as I struggle upward. “Where are you?” I scream through my burning lungs.

  “I’m here … up here …”

  At last I bob to the surface, spitting and choking. There, I turn my face to the sunlight—how did I get outside?—grateful to be alive. Grateful that somebody saved me.

  A hand grasps my hair from behind. Ragged nails dig into my scalp, pulling me down, down, down, dragging me back underwater.

  The disembodied voice above me shrills with laughter.

  “Just a dream, just a dream.” Mom strokes my hair.

  I fight to hide my irrational annoyance. “I know it was a dream. I’m not five.”

  “Honey, if these nightmares are waking you up again—”

  “Just this one,” I lie.

  “—maybe you need your meds adjusted.”

  “No, I don’t!”

  “I think you do. And I’m the mom, so I win. I’m going to call that new doctor and insist he get you in sooner. And you need someone to talk to—”

  “Mom, no.” Oh, I’ve rehashed my whole life so many times and with so many doctors, sometimes it doesn’t feel like my own life anymore.

  “About Nana,” Mom clarifies. My muscles tighten. �
�Honey, it’s only been three months. I know you’re suffering. Me, too,” she adds softly. “Maybe we could both use a bit of intensive therapy.”

  I hug my head, knowing it’s futile, that Mom’ll get her way in the end.

  If Annaliese was above me in the dream, then who was pulling me back underwater?

  Nana?

  Oh, God … Nana …

  Mom pats my leg. “Try to go back to sleep. We can talk in the morning.”

  I chuck the pillow aside. “I dreamed about Annaliese. They say she haunts the tunnel and that’s why everyone hates to go in there. You know about that, right?”

  Mom hesitates. “I’ve heard some things.”

  “So we had a séance last night and that’s why we were in there. And we kind of got carried away, and it was pretty scary, and, well, I guess I kind of freaked out. That’s why I had that dream. It’s got nothing to do with my meds.”

  “A séance,” Mom repeats, like she got stuck on that one sentence and heard nothing else. “Why?”

  “It was just a game.”

  A game? That’s a lie. You SAW what happened.

  “You knew her, right?” I ask Mom when she takes too long to answer.

  She draws back. “Vaguely.”

  “So what happened? How’d she drown?”

  “Ah, I don’t think this is something we should be talking about now. Unless you want another nightmare.”

  I catch her as she starts to push up from my mattress. “I’m okay now, honest. I’m just curious, you know?” Deviously I add, “If you don’t tell me, somebody else will.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” Mom says crisply. “Nobody knows how it happened. Her grandmother reported her missing when she didn’t come home from school. They found her the next morning. Poor Mrs. Gibbons never got over it.”

  “Was she swimming by herself? They always say not to do that.”

  Mom shrugs.

  “Well, was she swearing a swimsuit?”

  “Street clothes,” Mom admits. “The same ones she wore to school that last day. We weren’t allowed to use the pool after hours, but sometimes we’d sneak in. She had a bump on her head, so the police thought she fell in by accident. They interviewed everyone. Nobody saw a thing.”

  Or nobody admitted it. “Were you friends with her?”

  “We had classes together. We weren’t really friends.”

  Something tells me Annaliese wasn’t the cheerleader type. “Didn’t they wonder if she was murdered? You know, with that bump and all.”

  Mom slaps my hip. “Well, thank you very much for that pleasant idea. Now I’ll be having nightmares.” She springs up before I can stop her. “Go back to sleep, unless you want me to make us a pot of coffee.”

  I stretch out with my hands under my head. “No, thanks. I’m still tired.”

  After she blows me a kiss and leaves, I turn Annaliese’s story around in my mind. If the tiles are wet, you can slip and fall into a pool; I’ve done it myself, twice, with our pool in La Jolla—stoned the first time, careless the second. So it’s not impossible.

  Is it true that if someone dies a violent death, their ghost can come back and haunt the place where they died?

  I remember the frozen faces of my friends last night. Can a ghost do that?

  Wait. I don’t believe in ghosts.

  But I do know what happened last night.

  I decline Mom’s invitation to drive to Westfield to pick up some decent, affordable groceries. As soon as the SUV pulls off, I dial Tasha’s number, hoping to feel her out about the séance. Before we exchange five words, she invites me over. “Lacy and Meg are here. Hurry up!”

  I do. But when I get to Tasha’s house, no one’s talking about the séance; instead, they’re discussing yesterday’s game, and Meg’s ill-timed fall.

  “I can’t believe Koenig kicked me off the squad,” Meg moans.

  “Not for good,” Tasha reminds her. “Just till your doctor okays you.”

  “What if he doesn’t? What’ll I do then? Cheering’s all I care about!”

  Unfazed, Tasha retorts, “You heard what Rinn said. Those stunts are dangerous. You’ll never catch me trusting my life to a bunch of ditzy pom-pom girls.”

  Lacy sticks out her tongue. “No, you just leap headfirst from a fifty-foot board and pray your skull doesn’t smack the cement.”

  I cringe, picturing Annaliese tripping, whacking her head, tumbling into the pool with a scream nobody hears … gasping for breath …

  Lacy nods curtly. “What’s with you, Jacobs?”

  I wet my lips. “Is everyone okay?”

  Tasha blinks. “You asked us that last night.”

  “I mean … you know … the séance.”

  “Oh, that. A waste of time.”

  Lacy pokes Meg. “But we sure scared the hell out of that big jock boyfriend of yours. Where’d he disappear to? What a pussy.”

  Meg’s wan smile reveals nothing. Tasha says with a snicker, “Too bad Dino farted and spoiled the whole mood.”

  Frustrated, I shout, “I’m talking about what happened after Dino farted.”

  “Nothing ‘happened,’” Lacy growls, “because somebody had to run crying to her mommy. We got busted. We left. End of story.”

  “That’s not the end and you know it.” My confusion blossoms as they all exchange looks. “That’s not the end of the story,” I repeat loudly because I wasn’t hallucinating! Now, in the daylight, with time to think about it, I know I’m right. My “real” hallucinations were always vague, distorted. I remember every vivid detail about last night.

  It happened.

  Lacy lifts her brows. “So what is the story?”

  “You guys acted … well, weird!” How do I describe their dead faces and frozen limbs? “You sat there like zombies, not moving, not talking—”

  Amused, Lacy interrupts, “Whatever you’re smoking, Jacobs, I wish you’d share it.”

  “Why are you pretending nothing happened? You said you smelled chlorine and then all of you went blank!”

  Tasha interjects. “I smelled dirt. And that candle.”

  Why is she lying? I heard her say she smelled it. I seek out Meg, lost in her own world, absently rubbing one ear. “Meg?”

  Frowning, she drops her hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Well. So much for that.” Lacy thoughtfully twirls a curl. “Hey, guys, did you see Rinn’s mom dancing with Nate’s old man? Whoa, better watch out—you might be dating your own stepbrother one of these days.”

  “That’s not incest,” Tasha assures me kindly.

  “Not technically,” Lacy concedes. “Just gross.”

  Okay, now the truth is quite clear: either they honestly don’t remember what happened, or they’ve already made a pact not to discuss it with me. This second idea makes the most sense, I decide. And for this I ditched Nate?

  I’m glad I never took off my jacket. “Whatever. Go ahead, play your stupid games. But next time, leave me out of it.”

  As I charge out, I hear Tasha ask, “Jeez, what got into her?”

  3 MONTHS + 29 DAYS

  Monday, November 3

  I’m mad. And frustrated. And ready to scream.

  First thing this morning, I catch Dino near his locker. It’s almost comical how he looks both ways, like he wants to make sure I’m actually speaking to him. “I need to talk to you about Saturday night.”

  Dino affects his bad-boy slouch. “Yeah, what about it?”

  “You guys were goofing around, right?”

  “Uhh …”

  “At the séance, Dino. Before my mom showed up.”

  He loses the slouch. Confusion clouds his face. “You mean when I threw the candle? Look, I’m sorry about that—”

  I stomp impatiently. “No, Dino. After the candle and before my mom. What happened in there?”

  A long, long silence. Then he answers slowly, as if carefully choosing his words, “I guess I fell asleep. It’s kind of a blur,
y’know?”